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poetry Nancy Pelosi tore up Trump's Speech

San Francisco Poet Beau Beausoleil answers the mysterious question, why did Nancy Pelosi tear up the State of the Union speech?

Nancy Pelosi tore up Trump's Speech
By Beau Beausoleil

She tore up
his speech
on behalf
of

every woman
man and
child
who has died
from gun violence

for every American
who lay down
in a drug
that gave them
a fatal way
out of their
nightmares /
out of their
country's collective pain

She tore up
his empty words
and self-promoting
percentages

for every parent
heading out
to their second job
the one whose pay
feeds and clothes
their children

She tore up
his image of
a WALL that
refuses entry

A WALL that mocks
the Statue of Liberty
which has welcomed those
"yearning to breathe free"
for more than
a hundred years

She tore up
his self congratulatory
pronouncements

on behalf
of everyone
abandoned
marginalized
and left behind
by racism

or by a judgment
on how one
might live and whom
one might  love

She tore up
his speech
on behalf
of those
who have found
themselves
an "acceptable underclass"
by the rich

She tore up
his speech of lies

because women
are still fighting
to make their
own personal decisions
concerning when
and if to have
children 

She tore up
his speech

for those
at jobs
without meaning

for those
in line
at the
food bank

for those children
whose main meal
is a free
school lunch

She tore
up his speech

for those
underpaid
without health care

for those
whose unrecognized
hard work
has forced them
to go on strike

She tore up
his speech

for those
trying to
bring their
tired bodies
upright

She tore
up the President's words

because they were selfish
and hollow
and  didn't mean anything
to anyone crushed by
his "American Dream"

Her simple act of tearing up
his speech
made me feel whole again

Beau Beausoleil is based in San Francisco, California. He is the founder of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Project, a book arts response to the car-boming of Al-Mutanabbi Street (the street of the booksellers) in Baghdad, Iraq in 2007. His most recent book is, A Glyphic House: New And Selected Poems 1976-2019 (Blue Light Press) Project Link -
 https://www.arabartsfestival.com/al-mutanabbi-street-starts-here-home/?fbclid=IwAR03sN2AcI5uI8Vfdi4JZUhBjGBy4MS8yrCpSkxVIri8pvgDRROg4SWwtGw