Max Reif’s most recent poem to appear here was “Down the Trail” (December 2016)

American Dream, American Nightmare
By Max Reif

America the beautiful,
prophecy of Blake,
democratic vista of Whitman,

harbinger of a new humanity,
melting pot for Europeans, Russians,
Asians, Africans,Middle-Easterners,
Latinos, Hindus, Moslems, Buddhists,
Christians, Jews, Santarians,

Where are you bound?
You future is in your own hands,
grappling with each other
in grim clinch,

The White Mask, inflexible—
not even white, really,
more like “pinko-grey”,
as Kipling said —
firm against the Rainbow?

But is it not all One Spectrum:
under God, indivisible,
and some day with
liberty and justice
for all!