Celebrating 50 - Poems About Patriotism

How do I begin The litany of my praise Where so much is wrong And we in the haze Of material focus See not the spirit dripping Into soggy souls. We see the goals Extolled by what brings to ruin Other blind places While around me throng Two point seven million Disharmonous songs. How do I begin To enthrone the humanity Surrendered To the modern love Of foreign vanity? ii So here am I Unhappy before I left Unhappier now Having seen things differently And different for thirty years Walked in prisons That gleamed like human space Compared to hospitals That bring me tears I cannot cheer the blight Of fifty years But I still believe This land is special More than sand castles And hotel commercials That mute The red bleeding mud Deep in a vision's blood iii Come Columbus help me write The rewrite of your beginning of lies History did not begin us right Sea dogs and pirates, swarming flies For commodity of meat, nothing great If a man has no origin No achievemment, he still can hate The conquistadores sin Against his patrimony and race. We Are the expansion of the kingdom Heirs and makers of a new country We are history's vintage from the rum The lies told at the borders and now Laid to the blame of father's crying still And bush overgrown yam and hill O Jamaica, to you alone we make this vow That we shall not about our state We shall love you when all others hate.