refugees and draft dodgers
          is what made america great

          the sons and daughters of those waves of sea sick steerage passengers
                     from the lands of despots and god-kings
          have forgotten their own heritage
                    even the good book demands the conscience of the individual
          take precedence over the commands of a king

as tolstoy wrote
          of the conscience of you or i
          must take the last of stand
                    through the reasoning of the artifices of ethics, morality
          boiled down
                    the essence
                              don’t be a dupe of the silly flags,
                              banging of the tin drums,
                              and those trinkets from the state

brain washed
          under the influence of drugs
                    under the blaring of the patriotic, tootling trumpets
          even before the washing off of the mother’s amniotic fluids
                    colors of blood and heraldry through the uterine wall

for those who still inhabit the living world
          forgetting is better to assuage the conscience

          our forebearers understood through living
                    under the fist of a tyrant
          where law was promulgated through a deities’ annointed one
                    processed by belief into whatever whim
          relief from this can only be bought by fomenting absolute revolution