With profound apologies to Walt Whitman

 I Hear America Bitching

I hear America bitching, the varied noises today I hear,

Those of media commentators of every chordless type, each singing and underestimating the good sense of folks who don’t see the world and its myriad issues splattered against a black-and-white canvas,

The well-paid extremists who swarm in to condemn a drunk-driving cop who kills an innocent biker, yet remain light years away and mute when a decent officer is gunned down dead,

The minions of a Kansas maniac professing God’s hate of gays, Catholics, Jews [for that matter everybody] and who show up at service members’ funerals merely to grab sound bites for the news media,

The benign bleatings of career politicians, whose melodies of promise and pledges are shorn swiftly with such sheepish ease,

The warped arias of pin-striped, corporate cowboys on whom so many livelihoods depend, falling safely and richly beneath canopies of gold in the aftermath of their misdeeds and mismanagement,

The song of the lazy and those who don’t give a damn, whose misguided measures with many rest signs seek full harvest without sowing one seed,

Perhaps soon we shall hear new tunes, each measure robust and hopeful,

Singing with open mouths a similar lyric echoing 1776 and stretching for future harmony.