Sanaa is hosting dVerse Open Link Night ~ we are free to post a poem of our choice ~
It began not with a bang
but a glint, a boyish smile
beamed through grainy television light
a man named Kennedy spoke of torch-passing
I believed him
hope in a tailored suit while shadows
waited silently in Dallas
Then came fire, cities burning
two more shots
dreams kneecapped mid-sentence
and the country turned inward
toward Nixon's clenched jaw
this one smelled of wiretaps and erased tape
We changed, but slowly
each crisis carried us limping into new rooms
Reagan's smile offered morning again
while undercurrents swirled all around
Iran-Contra, Wall Street's ghoulish grin
Then, a saxophone on late-night TV
Clinton grinning through scandal
pivoting in place, negotiating truth
fabric fraying as prosperity hummed
the line between personal and political
blurred by midnight
The Towers fell. Everything changed.
a cowboy president squinted at the
horizon
made his choice, war like a hammer
justice outsourced to the drone's eye
Obama, hand on Bible
a shift in color, cadence
he said hope, he said change
I heard music, others skepticism
he meant the long game
And then came rupture
not a pivot but a plunge
the Carnival, barking its way
to the White House Steps
a nation split not in two
but in shards, each tweet a crisis
each lie a decision point for the soul
Today we sit in this ever-tilting room
choices stacked like sandbags against
the surge
crisis was never a moment
it is the ground beneath us
always trembling, forever demanding
upon which we must choose
who we will become next
