America Howls at the Funeral Pyre

Nancy O'Brien Simpson

Photo: Дмитрий Плотников Pravda.Ru by Нейросеть

Самолет F-47

"America, America, what have you done?
What ghosts rise screaming from jungles and deserts, from rice paddies and sand dunes, from oil fields and blood-soaked cities?

Napalm fingers stretching over history, phosphorous tongues licking at the bones of children, drone ghosts circling in the sky like mechanical vultures— Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Ukraine—one war rolling into the next like an endless highway of fire, like a preacher promising salvation at the end of a gun barrel, like a junkie hitting the same old vein, hoping this time the high will feel like heaven instead of hell. 

America, you are the arsonist who weeps at the fire, you are the gambler who bets it all on a losing hand and demands the deck be reshuffled,
you are the howling judge condemning the guilty while feasting on the spoils of the crime.

Ukraine! Oh, America’s beautiful proxy, pumped full of money, missiles, NATO dreams whispered like sweet nothings into Zelenskyy’s ear,
promises stretching over the horizon like an oil-slick sunset,
and when Putin, the old bear, roared and lunged, we gasped, we clutched our pearls, we cried,

“How could he? How dare he? This was unprovoked!”
But history laughs in long, deep echoes, and the truth rattles in the bones of dead men.

And now, America, your orange-haired messiah shuffles to the podium,
whispers of peace tangled in his hair, promises like smoke curling from his lips,
“I can end this in one day,” he boasts, then laughs, then winks—
was he joking? was he serious? does it even matter?
The great deal-maker, the artful dodger, the carnival barker at the gates of Armageddon— one hand reaching for the peace prize, the other signing the contract for another war.

And Iran, waiting in the shadows, watching, unblinking,
as Netanyahu sharpens his knives, as bombs shake Gaza, as blood runs in rivers down the streets— another empire salivating at the thought of conquest, another leader drunk on the idea of destiny.
But the chessboard shifts, and the grandmaster watches as the checker player fumbles,
because missiles don’t care about politics, and warheads don’t wait for campaign speeches,
and when the fire starts, it won’t ask for permission.

America, America, land of the free, home of the brave,
when will you learn that the bodies you bury do not disappear?
That ghosts do not sleep? That history will never forget?
That one day, the fire you set will come for you,
that one day, you will be the ashes in the wind.