ISSUE THIRTEEN: Ye, Smelly Tsar | next poem →

Goddam

Ashanti Anderson

after Nina Simone

And everybody knows about America
but not about the beautiful
the dawn’s early light amber waves
of grain mountain majesties
star-spangled fruited plains nation
under God we trust people in order to
manifest destiny mayflower
ice tea apple pie gold mines
life and liberty and the American
Dream freedom of speech freedom of
this that and the third through
twenty-seventh amendment
or of veterans trained to fight
for everything but themselves

Everybody knows America can’t
read her own Constitution.

Everybody knows America don’t
care about the majority vote.

Everybody knows America cares
more about gun rights than human rights.

Everybody knows America deserves
to be nuked but she owes Everybody money.

Everybody knows America opposes
free healthcare but can’t afford the co-pay.

Everybody knows America regrets
inviting that black guy over because
now he just won’t go home.

Everybody knows America misdiagnoses
women with depression when they
go to the doctor for chest pain.

Everybody knows America shoots
niggers to cash in her vacation days.

Everybody knows America built
the school to prison pipeline
and the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Everybody knows America had
the baby even though she didn’t want it
and leaves it at home while she
goes out with friends and blows her money
on drug incarceration and military spending.

Everybody knows America carries
rifles into supermarkets to shoot people
who don’t want to molest her children
in a restroom but elects a president
who would molest her children
in a restroom and brag about it
in another restroom.

And everybody knows about America
except America
Goddam.

Ashanti Anderson is a MFA student in poetry at University of California, Riverside. She was an honorable mention for the Truman Capote Literary Trust Award and her poem, “Ode to Brown,” has been nominated for the 2016 Pushcart Prize. Her poetry has appeared in Furrow, New Voices, and Compose: A Journal of Simply Good Writing. .

ISSUE THIRTEEN: Ye, Smelly Tsar | next poem →













ISSUE THIRTEEN: Ye, Smelly Tsar

Ashanti Anderson
   Goddam

Alan Elyshevitz
   BLDG A, STE 4-22

Deidre O’Connor
   Vision at a Dublin Airport Hotel

Claire Scott
   The Morning After

Daniel Lasell
   Above What's Under

Chey Davis
   The Indictment

Hilary Sideris
   Park

John Rodzvilla
   Then Bring It Double (12 & 35)

Kathleen McClung
   After the Election

Matthew W. Schmeer
   Disturbing the Peace

Mark Cunningham
   [sort]
   [sort]