AMERICAN REQUIEM: Lament for a Fallen Nation

	What requiem should be intoned
	for a colossus with ossified bones?
	
	Cantate requiem pro democratia quae mortua est!

	Perhaps silence is the best soliloquy
	for a behemoth prone to depravity

	Cantate requiem pro democratia quae mentita est!

	Are tears for fading empires warranted –
	or will body bags suffice?

	Lacrimam democratiae quae mortua est effudit!

	If systems focus solely on short-term profit
	is the market bell the only meaningful chime?

	Lacrimam effudit omnibus nati in loco ubi nulla democratia viget!

SETTING: The air hung heavily, thick with the poem's palpable nihilism that clung to every 
surface like a funeral crepe. A group amateur poets hunched in the glow of a dying bulb, 
as the poem lay sprawled on the scarred table.

Sam shoved the page away, a harsh scoff scraping from his throat. His head shook slightly, 
eyes darting like startled sparrows. "Damn," he growled, "this whimpers! It's a funeral 
dirge for a fantasy that has hardly ever found flesh."

Terri tilted back, crossing her arms with a skeptical smirk. "Spot on. Last I looked, 
America's heart still hammers. Why pen this premature elegy? This 'Requiem' feels a bit premature."

Tim didn't look up. He was tracing the edge of his coffee mug, his voice barely a whisper 
but heavy with conviction. "Because in all the ways that actually matter... America is 
already a corpse. Can't you catch the stench of its decay?"

Ted's face tightened, twitching with irritation. He jabbed a finger toward the window. 
"Well, isn't America at its apex? Look at the ledger.  Militarily, we're matchless; we hold the 
lion's share of the world's wealth. How do you call a titan 'dead' when it’s holding most of the chips?"

Kris chuckled coldly, pointing to Donald Trump's corpulent belly. "His paunch is a perfect 
parable for our nation, Ted. Look at it: bloated and burdened by blubber. He is Jabba the Hutt.
We're a society that's swallowed itself.  We’ve become a society where consumption has 
completely swallowed production whole. Simply put, that is unsustainable."

Tim lifted his head, his eyes icy. "There is a mathematical physics to the rise and fall 
of every nation, and we aren't exempt from the gravity. At this point in history, America 
is on a downward arc. Sure, its founding concepts were noble — maybe even beautiful — but 
civilizations are inherently short-sighted. We’re just another behemoth too blinded by 
its own size to see the approaching cliff."

=================================================================================
from _AmeriSong: Poetry, Art, & Dialogs about Amerika_ by T Newfields
LONG-SUMMARY: A haunting poetic lament for America's decline ignites a fierce debate 
among critics about whether the nation is already a rotting corpse, a triumphant titan, 
or a self-cannibalizing behemoth blindly consuming its own future.
SHORT-SUMMARY:  A lament about the demise of American greatness and discussion about 
          the rise and fall of empires.
KEYWORDS:  American overstretch, political poetry, imperial America, American requiem, 
          imperial decay, civilizational cycles, hubris, national identity

Author: T Newfields [Nitta Hirou / Huáng Yuèwǔ] (b. 1955)
Begun: 2002 in Nagoya, Japan / Finished: 2026 in Shizuoka, Japan
Creative Commons License: Attribution. {{CC-BY-4.0}} Granted

Disclosure: This piece was partially generated using AI tools for styling and ideation; 
            human editing was then applied.

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