I've been working on this poem for a week. In light of today's second impeachment of a U.S. President ever, with my feelings of having been trampled under foot by a mob of insurrectionists and my head both feeling like it is going to explode or implode, I believe poetry is my only recourse😡🤬🤯

What If . . .

What if we changed our thinking?

Seems to me it has been stinking—

Thinking, that is!

And what if we transformed our vocabulary?

Maybe a little less military?

Hey! I just had one,

A thought, I mean—check it out!

Is it odiferous?

Let’s eliminate all “isms”

That might mitigate current schisms,

See life through myriad prisms,

Instead of only black and white

Or absolutes: “You’re wrong! I’m right!”

Capital’s essential, you know,

For entrepreneurs and commerce flow.

But adding “ism” always starts a fight:

Smith or Keynes, Marx or Malthus;

Each an ism in its own right.

Being social’s a healthy attitude,

Even communal, although a platitude.

But tack on that suffix, we become bellicose,

We can’t see our neighbor, at least not up close.

My fellow Americans, sans ism,

Be a patriot, proud of our national rhythm

Don’t you think it’s off track?

How to ever get it back?

Let’s be fans—not fanatics

And honor our heroes

While shunning the ones who lead us astray.

No need to name them; we know by their actions:

“By their fruits you shall know them.” Eliminate factions.

A new thought—a new verbiage, a better way!