Donald Trump sits on my window sill tweeting,
His orange plumage garish in this tropical dawn.
Jo Biden teeters skeletal, colour-blind
To a country split into red and blue.
I shouldn’t worry about America, but I do.
Sure, it is just another empire falling into ruin,
A
failed state, by its own definition, but
A third world country in charge of a first world army
Has to be a cause for concern to those
Other world leaders who standby smirking, pointing
And stroking their chins.
But I wonder if the US is also a victim
Of its own success: the spoiled child
Of a marriage between democracy and capitalism
Who ends up murdering its own parents
While they sleep?
Meanwhile, Xi Jinping waves dictatorial
Like one of those mechanical golden cats
On a takeaway food shop counter
Where Hong Kong and Taiwan
Are the main items on the menu.
I shouldn’t worry about China, but I do.
With its bellicose rhetoric about sovereignty,
Its militarisation of the South China Sea,
Its Belt and Road Initiative, its economic bullying,
Its silencing of dissent, internment of minorities.
Is this what the future of the world looks like:
A Concentration Camp/Re-Education Facility
Where thinking and speaking freely
Are crimes punishable by death?
Those same world leaders smirking at America
Look to China and hold their breath.
All this seems so far away as I water the garden
And watch my daughter pick Hibiscus flowers:
“Daddy, this one is for you.”
I shouldn’t worry about the world, but I do.
It is hers to inherit, and if this inheritance
Turns out to be a broken, dysfunctional nightmare
Then isn’t that our collective failure as parents?
©shaun patrick green 2020
