all the rage this winter
is a movie called america
a high octane action-packed
thriller with plot twists galore
enough to white knuckle flip
the bottom of your stomach
& boomerang your senses
a giant box office blockbuster
featuring government buildings
once thought solid as fortresses
erupting in flame at the opening
credits that grand american
tradition of things blowing up
in shocking special effects
detail a movie as real-seeming
as the seemingly invincible villain’s
strip mall tan and absurd hair
of mysterious origin as he hunkers
thug dumb & oafish behind
the resolute desk flanked by
his legions the bought & sold
duly elected their cowardly profiles
empty silhouettes destined to be
nameless extras in the closing credits—
kowtowing asskisser spineless
senator gutless nominee—
now lorded over by the evil sidekick
terrible enforcer utterly believable
billionaire straight out of central
casting & breakout star of the season
(audaciously sporting his own
mini-me evil sidekick) freakish
& gleeful in his unofficial capacity
to punish and exact revenge
on any innocent bystander or
legitimate government employee
intent on regulating or impeding
his exploding empire of crashing
burning inventions designed to control
the universe the storyline is cliché
& too implausible (critics will argue)
the characters so shallow
& one-dimensional that drama
requires the violence be distractingly
high tech & adrenaline-pumping
just as the heroes
must appear too principled
and ineffectual trailing behind
the wreckage in gray business suits
lugging briefcases crammed
with memos motions
injunctions all tortoise-like
in their implementation
it’s not that justice is blind
it’s that justice is too damn slow
& criminals know to work the margins
to operate steps ahead with impunity
for a season as one bad actor
not an actor at all a reality
tv hack can pretend a mandate
to real power do real damage
dominate screens large & small
across america where one day
the nation will rouse
as if waking from a horrible
nightmare and failing the words
to describe this ordeal
will resort to simile
in much the same way
as survivors of real plane crashes
when interviewed about
their experience will insist
it was just like being in a movie.
Debra Marquart is the author of eight books of prose and poetry, including an environmental memoir of place, The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere and Gratitude with Dogs Under Stars: New & Collected Poems. She teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University and the Stonecoast Low-Residency MFA Program at University of Southern Maine, and she serves as the senior editor of Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment. A singer/songwriter, Marquart performs with her jazz-poetry, rhythm & blues project, The Bone People. For more information: debramarquart.com.
Read Debra Marquart’s other Letter to America poem, “Come November,” also appearing in Terrain.org. And read more letters in Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance and Democracy, published by Trinity University Press in collaboration with Terrain.org.
Header photo by zef art, courtesy Shutterstock.
