I've been outside the blog for a year, am climbing back on as we head toward April's National Poetry Month.
Working on found poems, including one ripped from the New York Times titled, "Why Do Doctors Ignore the Clitoris," published here, I have written a new one ripped from the Declaration of Independence based on the past six weeks in the U.S.
AN UPDATED DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
June 1776 - March 2025
evinces a design to… absolute despotism
it is the… duty…to provide new guards for future security.
The history of the present “King”… is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute
tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted.
He has refused his assent to laws… The State remaining in the meantime exposed
to…dangers … from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states;
obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others
to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new
appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice….
He has made judges dependent on his will alone….
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent
hither swarms of officers to harass our people.
He has affected to render the military independent of and
superior to the civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction
foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent
to their acts of pretended legislation:
For protecting them… from punishment for any murders which
they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;
For cutting…our trade with… parts of the world;
For taking away our… most valuable laws, and altering
fundamentally the forms of our governments;
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring
themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us
A “prince,” whose character is thus marked by every
act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
