American Elegy

By name America lives
Only by name.
Spies enter into the homes of innocent men,
And take their books,
And change them.
They make Edna St. Vincent the author of "First Fig".
Several months earlier, it was another author's name.
I had read the poem...

Is it the same for you?
Are these tools of ignorance
A weapon used against me only
Or is it the altering of the very fabric of history?
Is it a lie of narratives
Which some day, my American Myth really will be a myth
That nobody believes like Jesus
Or the Global flood?

President Bush, do you condone this behavior?
You say, "That's not real?"
Then why do they feed me with it?
A host of actors playing a role
And none of us know whether it's real or not.

Or, is it only me?
Am I the one being fed?
I try to write America's Magnum Opus,
The complete history,
But am unable.
I do not trust my sources
As your spies have entered into my home
And stole my books,
And committed plagiarism by publishing
False titles under Fall River's Press.

Or, is Edna St. Vincent the actual author of First Fig?
The Red Wheelbarrow used to be in my book,
Now it's replaced by "Queen Ann's Lace."
Did William Carlos Williams write this poem?
I don't know.
And for that, America, I write your elegy.
Your freedom is gone,
For this one man's freedom is gone.
The freedom to have truth,
And share a common story.
For, I know not the truth,
Only that I have been severely scorned.

America, goodbye.
You were a shining beacon on a hill.
Now you're no better than China.