"Patriotics," by David Baker

Yesterday a little girl got slapped to death by her daddy,
  out of work, alcoholic, and estranged two towns down river.
America, it's hard to get your attention politely.
  America, the beautiful night is about to blow up

and the cop who brought the man down with a shot to the chops
  is shaking hands, dribbling chaw across his sweaty shirt,
and pointing cars across the courthouse grass to park.
  It's the Big One one more time, July the 4th,

our country's perfect holiday, so direct a metaphor for war,
  we shoot off bombs, launch rockets from Drano cans,
spray the streets and neighbors' yards with the machine-gun crack
  of fireworks, with rebel yells and beer. In short, we celebrate.

It's hard to believe. But so help the soul of Thomas Paine,
  the entire county must be here--the acned faces of neglect,
the halter-tops and ties, the bellies, badges, beehives,
  jacked-up cowboy boots, yes, the back-up singers of democracy

all gathered to brighten in unambiguous delight
  when we attack the calm and pointless sky. With terrifying vigor
the whistle-stop across the river will lob its smaller arsenal
  halfway back again. Some may be moved to tears.

We'll clean up fast, drive home slow, and tomorrow
  get back to work, those of us with jobs, convicting the others
in the back rooms of our courts and malls--yet what
  will be left of that one poor child, veteran of no war

but her family's own? The comfort of a welfare plot,
  a stalk of wilting prayers? Our fathers' dreams come true as
  nightmare.
So the first bomb blasts and echoes through the streets and shrubs:
  red, white, and blue sparks shower down, a plague

of patriotic bugs. Our thousand eyeballs burn aglow like punks.
  America, I'd swear I don't believe in you, but here I am,
and here you are, and here we stand again, agape.

(2002)

"I, Too, Sing America," by Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

(1925)

"Ragged Old Flag," by Johnny Cash

I walked through a county courthouse square
On a park bench, an old man was sittin' there.
I said, "Your old court house is kinda run down,
He said, "Naw, it'll do for our little town".
I said, "Your old flag pole is leaned a little bit,
And that's a ragged old flag you got hangin' on it".
He said, "Have a seat", and I sat down,
"Is this the first time you've been to our little town"
I said, "I think it is"
He said "I don't like to brag, but we're kinda proud of
That Ragged Old Flag

"You see, we got a little hole in that flag there,
When Washington took it across the Delaware.
and It got powder burned the night Francis Scott Key sat watching it,
writing "Say Can You See"
It got a rip in New Orleans, with Packingham & Jackson
tugging at its seams.
and It almost fell at the Alamo
beside the Texas flag,
But she waved on though.
She got cut with a sword at Chancellorsville,
And she got cut again at Shiloh Hill.
There was Robert E. Lee and Beauregard and Bragg,
And the south wind blew hard on
That Ragged Old Flag

"On Flanders Field in World War I,
She got a big hole from a Bertha Gun,
She turned blood red in World War II
She hung limp, and low, a time or two,
She was in Korea, Vietnam, She went where she was sent
by her Uncle Sam.
She waved from our ships upon the briny foam
and now they've about quit wavin' back here at home
in her own good land here She's been abused,
She's been burned, dishonored, denied an' refused,
And the government for which she stands
Has been scandalized throughout out the land.
And she's getting thread bare, and she's wearin' thin,
But she's in good shape, for the shape she's in.
Cause she's been through the fire before
and i believe she can take a whole lot more.

"So we raise her up every morning
And we bring her down slow every night,
We don't let her touch the ground,
And we fold her up right.
On second thought
I do like to brag
Cause I'm mighty proud of
That Ragged Old Flag"

(1974)

"America the Beautiful," by Katherine Lee Bates

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassion'd stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness.

America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.

O beautiful for heroes prov'd
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life.

America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev'ry gain divine.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

(1895)

"This Land is Your Land," by Woody Guthrie

This land is your land This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.

I've roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

(1940)

"I Hear America Singing," by Walt Whitman

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics - each one singing his, as it should be,
blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank and beam;
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work,
or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat -
the deckhand singing on the streamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench -
the hatter singing as he stands:
The wood-cutter's song the pliughboy's, on his way
The delicious singing of the mother - or of the young wife
at work - or of the girl sewing or washing - Each singing
what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day - At night, the party of
young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

(1892)

"Book Loaned to Tom Andrews," by Bobby C. Rogers

I'd already found out that one of the secrets to happiness was never loan your
 books. But I loaned it anyway. We were all of us poor and living

on ideas, stumbling home late to basement apartments, talking to ourselves.
 What did we own except books and debt? When the time came

we could move it all in the trunk of a car. Tom knew what a book was worth—he
 brought it back a week later, seemingly unhandled, just a little looser

in the spine, a trade paper edition of The Death of Artemio Cruz, required reading
 for a course in postmodernism we were suffering through.

The book's trashed now, boxed up and buried in the garage with a hundred other
 things I can't throw away. When I moved back south I loaned it again

to a girl I'd just met. At some party I'd said it was the best novel since Absalom,
Absalom!, which may  have been true, but mostly I was trying to impress her,

and convince myself, still testing all I'd been told about the matter of a book
 is best kept separate from, well, matter. Months later it turned up

on my front steps without comment, the cover torn in two places, the dog-eared
 pages of self-conscious prose stuck together with dark, rich chocolate.

(2011)