Let Freedom Ring

Oh liberty!
That doth free the hungry minds
Mired in the soot of newsprint
Whose proclamations of freedom
Ring from every mountaintop
Booming with cannon fire
In Baghdad suburbia
Where golden age apocalypse
Sings in immolated promises
Like ashes blown on the wind

Where for art thou American democracy?
Did you lose your way?
Somewhere among the huddled masses
Who stand in line in soup kitchen delirium
Hungry souls who seek salvation
In the waxing and waning dollar
Whose dilapidated derelicts
Dim in the twilight tarnish
Ancient wrecks
Who reek with fumes
Of fermented dreams

Woe betide the American way
Which Stumbles through alley ways
Where lost lambs languish
Amongst the ruins of laissez faire
Where paper plate meal tickets
Summon staggering souls
With pied piper portents
Of mashed potato hopes