RYAN DAVID GINSBERG
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AMERICA-20

AMERICA-20 delivers a gut-wrenching punch to the heart and to the soul of America. In my angriest work so far, the raw emotion and heartbreak can be felt on every page. Through poetry and prose, I grapple with the current state of America: the devastation of COVID-19, the outcry of the Black Lives Matter movement, the inhumanities of the Trump administration, the abandonment of God in America, the fear mongering of 24-hour news cycles, and so much more. In a nation on the brink of the Second Civil War, I scream into the void in the only way I know how: with written word.
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here are some poems

What Is A Country?
 
 
What is a country but borders drawn by hand and laws thought up by man?
Who is to say which human being is legal and which is illegal
In a stolen land?
Who is to say which human is entering the right way
When the American way was to enter by slaughtering the original owners of the land?
What makes you deserving of being American
And Others undeserving?
You did nothing to earn your Americanness.
Being born on American land was not some sort of feat,
It wasn’t an accomplishment:
It was happenstance--
The happenstance being the location of your mother’s uterus on the day you arrived on planet earth.
You are not more deserving of the American lifestyle
Because of that happenstance,
And you are no better than anyone else
Because of the location of their mother's uterus.
All of us are human,
We all have the same human DNA.
Our minds do not differ,
Nor our hearts,
Nor our souls.
If there is a god,
Then we are all its children
And every piece of land is our home.
And if there is any god that shows preferential treatment toward its children based on the land that that god placed their mother's uterus on the day of their arrival,
Then fuck that god.
And if that somehow offends you and your idea of god then you need to think hard about what and who it is you think your god is.
What makes you believe that a god would, for some reason, have more affinity for a country invented by man 244 years ago upon some land that that god created over 4.5 billion years ago than it does for any other piece of land?
I would bet every American dollar I have that your god does not give a shit about America,
Nor any country,
For what is a country to a god?
What is a country to you?
What is a country but borders drawn by hand and laws thought up by man?
What is a country?
With Us Or Against Us
 
 
In America
These days
It is all or nothing:
You’re either with us or against us,
Racist or anti-racist,
Evil or pure,
Sinful or angelic.
We cast stones at first movements,
We are quick to judgment,
We are unafraid to attack our allies
If they don't speak the same as we do.
 
We are angry,
And justifiably so;
But with anger,
Rationale is often
Thrown out the window.
Bullets are too quick to fly,
Innocent lives are lost,
And none of us can win.
 
We create mobs
And join them
Without always knowing
What the mob
Is fighting for.
 
We are often judged
By tidbits without context,
Solidified as monsters
For past mistakes
We are now ashamed of
And wish to rectify,
We are stunted
By association
And made unable to grow
Into the beautiful flowers
We may have one day become.
We are forced into corners,
Forced into statements,
Forced into boxes,
Forced into shadows,
Forced into societal cells
For crimes sometimes misunderstood
And often unintentional.
 
We are amid a cultural revolution
Where we warriors
Are trying to lead
While simultaneously learning
How to fight
And discovering
Every day
What exactly it is
We are fighting for.
 
We are an army
Without a definitive leader
To turn to
For advice,
For guidance,
For reassurance,
For mediation,
For strategizing,
For unity,
For tranquility.
 
We are angry,
We are heartbroken,
We are dissatisfied,
We are untrusting,
We are abandoned,
We are disillusioned,
We are disenfranchised,
We are exhausted,
And all we want to do is
Fight
Back!
 
But while we have waited
Far too long,
We must also take a pause,
We must assess the situation,
We must find our allies
And we must allow them to be flawed,
For we must keep them by our side.
Because if we estrange ourselves
From potential allies
For ignorances they wish
To rid themselves from,
Then we force ourselves to fight
With fewer and fewer soldiers.
If we alienate teammates,
Destroy their lives,
Wreck their images,
Crush their existence,
Then where else
Do we expect them to go
But against us?
 
After all, in America
These days
It is all or nothing:
You’re either with us
Or against us.
And I’d rather have more for us
Than against.

 










​
yeah
​what crazy tree man said








​© 2020 by Ryan David Ginsberg. All Rights Reserved. 

It was nice to meet you, stranger of the internet


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  • Books
    • AMERICA-20
    • For Souls Like Mine
    • Pretending To Try To Be Okay
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