Poetry Matters: “(America Never Was America to Me),” by Rick Benjamin

 a riff-off of Langston Hughes

but it was to you?
& him, too? Who

am I to say what
was, wasn’t, or, 

for that matter
what is or isn’t

true? I will say
nothing’s new,

that freedom’s
just for a chosen

few, also that it
won’t do, this

promise long
past due, & so

many singing
the blues, bop,

Bach & Bessie
too. You, me,

then America
will be.