AMERICAN REQUIEM: Lament for a Fallen Nation What requiem should be intoned for a colossus with ossified bones? Perhaps silence is the best soliloquy for a behemoth prone to depravity Are tears for fading empires warranted – or will body bags suffice? If systems focus solely on short-term profit is the market bell the only meaningful chime? Sam: Dang! This is too wimpy! Terri: Yeah, America zzz alive! Why duh requiem? Tim: Kuz in many ways it's dying . . . Ted: Isn't the empire at its zenith? Militarily, it seems unmatched & it has much ah the world's wealth. Chris: The shape of the average American belly is a good metaphor for the nation as a whole: there's a lot of overstretch 'n lard. Consumption is out of balance with production. And in the long run, that's not sustainable. Tim: There is a physics to the rise and fall of all nations. At this point in time America is on the way down. Some of its concepts were noble, but in many ways most civilizations are too short-sighted. ================================================================================= from _AmeriSong: Poetry, Art, & Dialogs about Amerika_ by T Newfields SUMMARY: A lament about the demise of American greatness and discussion about the rise and fall of empires. KEYWORDS: American overstretch, political poetry, imperial America Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955) Begun: 2002 in Nagoya, Japan / Finished: 2020 in Shizuoka, Japan Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted < LAST http://www.tnewfields.info/AmeriSong/lincoln.htm TOC http://www.tnewfields.info/AmeriSong/index.html NEXT > http://www.tnewfields.info/AmeriSong/senator.htm