by Michael Shaler
Take my civil liberties, take them all:
What have we then more than we had before?
No war critique, no corruption to call?
All mine was yours before you wanted much more.
Then, the need of blind loyalty receivest,
I blame us all for our rights thou usest;
And blame if Alito us deceivest
And wanton waste of soldiers we refusest.
I won't forgive this robb'ry, evil thief
Left the Delta in flooded poverty
Attack Murtha, who spoke in honest grief
To bear witness to hate's known injury.
Godly godless warriors your ill will shows,
You kill us with your spite, you make us foes.
A former bilingual teacher in California public schools, Michael Shaler earned an MFA at San Francisco State. Currently at work on a novel, his fiction is forthcoming in The MacGuffin, and his nonfiction is forthcoming or has appeared in Elysian Fields Quarterly and The Dusty Shelf.