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From Impolitical & Irreligious

The New Colossus, Great America style

Front page of the New York Daily News, January 13, 2018.Well, our President opened his, um, let’s just say “piehole” the other day and once again Great America is leading the world by example. Our moral superiority has never been more evident.

I thought of the Statue of Liberty and what she represents. And I wondered, might France ask for it back?

Then I thought maybe it is time to update Emma Lazarus’s poem, “The New Colossus,” which is engraved at the base of the monument. Shouldn’t it be updated to reflect the vision of the man we elected[1] to “Make America Great Again?” Elected to the position that used to be known as the “Leader of the Free World?”

Yes, it should be updated and why not by me? And so I have.[2]

How it used to read

Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

My New “Great America” version

Keep, shithole lands, your dusky filth!” cries he

With churlish lips. “Give me your white, no more,

Your whoreson asses yearning to spend free,

The richest recluse of your gleaming shore.

Send these, the gormless, damn-the-cost to me,

I give you Trump to shower golden o’er!

The New Colossus, Great America style.

Notes

  1. You didn’t vote for him, of course, and neither did I. But “We the People” did, despite the fact that more votes were cast for his opponent than for him. What? We’re going to have a great country and fair elections? [^]
  2. My revision covers only the second and best known stanza of Lazarus’s sonnet. For the complete poem, see Wikipedia. [^]