Flying Over America
i'm flying home
flying, flying, flying, flying
flying home
this, ancient land was once
not unified but free to be
whatever the sun shone upon
not furrowed by industry
nor ribboned by concrete
but simply a life path
trod by bare and moccasined feet
now from coast to coast,
from great lakes to gulf
there is the mechanical roar of engines
the boom of bombs
the staccato stutter of hand guns
the quiet binary clicking of computers, and
the tortured cry of nature writhing
twisted by modernity
i am an african encased in aviated metal
surrounded by the sad contentment
of civilized progress anxious to maintain
its hegemony of coercion
as we fly forward into the future
unmindful of the feces we leave behind
intermittently dozing i dream
of appreciating the simple silence
of a heavy metal epoch rusting to dust
of meditating in the amber
of a muted spangled banner song
this land we jet across was ancient once
and though i know we can never again
atavistically return home
into a nostalgic past, still i long
to see this soil be ancient once more
unmolested
by a social order so unrepentant
in its disdain
for the womb
of our earthly environment
that only its death
can justify the manifest destiny
of this nation's existence
only death
can possibly cover the debt &
repay the cost of creating
this hubristic nation state
which so wantonly & methodically murdered red,
so avariciously & cruelly enslaved black
if this is truly one nation under god
then surely their god must be a devil
—by kalamu ya salaam