The corpse flower

The corpse flower of American hatred
Blooms once in a generation
Making people of sound mind
Pinch their noses
And curl their lips in primitive disgust

It began with ourselves
Borne across the Atlantic on the Mayflower
Claiming a desire for religious freedom
Succeeding where Jamestown failed

They slaughtered the ones who lived here
With muskets and diseased blankets
Making children their brides
And driving the unwilling onto reservations
Where they still live impoverished today
We let them have casinos
Tell them they're sovereign nations
But we'll pollute what we've given them for oil

Almost simultaneously
We began abducting Africans
By the shipload
Exploiting tribal warfare
For our national gain
Slaves built the White House
Now the home of a veritable Klansman

Thinking ourselves on the right side of history
We sent thousands of young men
To die in Asia
Claiming a fight against Communism
When really it was just an excuse
To kill more poor brown people
But it was just a conflict
War never officially declared
We built The Wall for our dead
Grieved another lost generation
And moved on

The Quran was the next evil
A branch of the same tree
From which Judaism and Christianity grow
Seen as diseased
It had to be cut off
When it was we who'd armed them
Fed their radicalization
Crying foul when they defended themselves
Against the mightiest nation's renewed assault

We sit now smelling what we planted
Four hundred years ago
Watering the soil with the blood of the other
Blood is thicker than water
It rots, too
I don't know what we expected
From roots dug so deeply in hatred