The America We Live in Now - Arshad Shiju

the america we live in now,

A world on its own,

for its intricacies and hypocrisies do plough,

a dizzying bewildered society apart.

Made and borne from movements past,

each a thread in carefully woven fabric,

drop by drop, each political movement to last,

the whirling saturated nation we call home.

coined and catcalled to the gargantuan fight,

Each wave of feminism doth ripple,

a spark, an ideation, a belief to enlight,

the cascading, rolling, rumbling waves.

the first wave, as sense of liberation,

Roared and spread by Bella Abzug,

one that flipped the anachronistic into contortion,

gaining and giving the right to women,

her daughter Liz doth envision,

Illumination into the caged households,

gaining and giving the right to women,

her granddaughter doth represent,

the infamous post-feminist masquerade to lament.

Curling, crescendoing, crashing do these waves individual waves of

feminism beat against the rocky republican shores of America.

[static.]

African american,

those suffering, scathed and sorrowful souls,

the bullets still ricochets and sinks their hearts a ton,

a never ending relentless tale of repetitive police brutality.

While I even write on these very pages,

the jarring privileged contrast against black ink do materialise,

for it was these leaders who trapped them in these cages,

marshall and parks, dehumanised and belittled to the very back of the bus.

Alienated against under the encapsulating Jim Crow era,

now this movement rests to stake its shrouded legacy,

the triad of words (black lives matter) murmurs as if it were an acapella,

scratched out and swiftly resurrected by ‘all lives matter’.

[static.]

there have been people in our own rich history,

So titled the mother of environmentalism,

the Rachel Carson doth call out our acts since our foragery,

when the Neanderthals hunted prior to our very own Anthropocene era,

Our climate has been destroyed,

to such an extent that it

seems as if we were toyed,

to face the impacts and mal-

fortunes of the world we now rest to inherit.

the stanza prior may appear as a swift landslide,

Utopia was crushed to crackle in this state,

to each green new deal and lexicons of geoengineering as marinate,

to lather and slap unto the crucified crimes committed before.

malevolent monopolies of the fossils of oil giants like Chevron,

Rushed and scurried like mice in the 80s to hide,

their gouda infused by carbon now hint of harrowing cologne,

of the putrid peculiar stench of robbery of the time we could have had to stop this very

landslide accelerating

to clock our demised doomsday.

[static.]

Heels, hemlines, hair and hysteric haute couture,

our political movements mimic the cyclical fashion trends,

popular, quirky, outdated until it takes another half-century to procure,

the rebirth and restoration of these movements like the triumvirate of feminist movements that ebbed and flowed amidst the slippage of passing time.

Observe and ponder through the italicised letters inscribed within this poetic art,

trying and begging to spell out the underlying message of our nation’s state now,

the cream of the crop, America was once the world’s finest tantalising tart,

for it tries to spell out america was our home until the last two lines,

muffled under the static of the last two decades of the twenty first century,

waiting to define our nation’s future.

[static.]

For you, the [static.] may seem confusing,

(jarring even)

Yet it shows and reveals the gaps underneath the claims,

For the truth is that political movements never end,

It ebbs and flows, curls and cascades,

Very much like the very same waves of fashion trends.

But we mischaracterise and are foolishly blinded by the overarching main media,

Mass protests and darwinian calls for action are only metonyms of the movements itself.

These last few verses are in the equivocal free verse,

As it shows and portrays the inherent polarisation and misrepresentation of the voices of the people,

these political movements are not what status quo dictates,

each revolutionary, extraordinary and a true novel in their true unfiltered light,

That is my one true america, my one true love, my one true home.

I cannot summarise feminism, environmentalism and racism under just these few pages,

But as you turn from page to page and read,

I hope you relive the spark and shimmer of America’s greatest fights,

its left to you.

its left to me.

its left to america.

For which sword to inflict pain and which scribe we choose to transcribe,

For our wondrous battles and movements of today to lay crystal clear before the Americans of tomorrow.

It might be an overhyped trend.

It might be a repopularise notion.

But it’s up to you and me to use our voices and our actions to construct and gloriously erect,

the america we live in now.

References

1. Bella Abzug

Championed as one of the cornerstones to the first feminist wave, her legacy continues throughout her matronal lineage.

2. marshall and parks

Refers to Thurgood Marshall and Rosa Parks wherein the latter was famous for refusing to move to the back of the bus upon a time where serration was prevalent in society.

3. Rachel Carson

Referred to the ‘Mother of Environmentalism’, she was crucial in our fight towards a greener world.

4. geoengineering

A series of scientific theories that have surfaced that aim to use futuristic methodologies in tackling climate change.

5. green new deal

A proposed legislature that aims towards restructuring America’s energy sectors and making their industries more greener with reliance on renewable sources of energy.

6. Anthropocene era

This new age in the history of the world where human actions have started to have an impact in the way ecosystems and the globe functions.

7. Chevron

Initially part of a bigger monopoly, this company hid scientific reports that fossil fuels did have a detrimental impact to our world for decades for profit until the impacts of these industries were revealed much later.

8. the cyclical fashion trends

Compared to political movements, rules such as the 50 year rule dictate how fashion brands and their respective products weave into popularity until it’s seen tacky within a decade of release. However, with time they would eventually repopularise and become retro and vintage in 50 years much like how political movements are perceived to be. (However the poem brings out how these movements never end or die out of popularity or followers but instead just disappear from the public eye and mainstream media for a sole blink of time).