American Flag Poem by Eric Cockrell

i've had mixed feelings
about the American flag
ever since they lowered it
for President Kennedy...
it took a beating during
the civil rights movement.
and then there was Vietnam,
all the atrocities, the lies,
the wasted deaths...
the marches, the protests,
the Kent State killings...
and the flag was burned
in anger, and i understood
the anger
and now the corporate takeover,
the loss of human rights,
the loss of dignity, and hope
how many deaths does it take?
JFK, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King
forty thousand plus in Vietnam
how many in the lying oil wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan?
how many homeless and jobless
does it take?
how many migrant workers treated
like animals?
how many old people have to lose
the benefits they've worked for?

and i think back to my old hero,
Thomas Jefferson what would he say?
maybe something like this:
'the real American flag isnt made of cloth,
it's drawn on the backs of the American workers.
male and female of all races and religions,
the people that built this country
the heart blood of this country.
when you put these people down
with your greed, your lies, your apathy
then you lower the flag.
and it can never be raised again
till all Americans walk heads up together
with hope till all have an equal opportunity
to live and be in freedom
until such day you have no flag! '