Coming Out from Under

Barack Obama at 2012 Democratic National Convention

for Barack and Michelle Obama


The people are coming out from under the pall of abuse.
Bad leaders, the worst, have us dizzy, tired,
unused to independent thought.
When our leaders are bad, we say “Is it me?
Am I dull and stupid, intolerant and unaware?”
The people have watched their tender firstborns
sent to war,  year after year,
to satisfy the unquenchable thirst for blood
of one bent solely on blind revenge.
We were not permitted to watch our sons and daughters
return home dead.
Maimed or incoherent, we housed them as best we could,
in the face of pure denial all around,
as their memories of senseless cruelty abroad
invaded their dreams.
The people, American people,
had to watch as their country
engaged in torture behind closed doors,
in a rule of no-law, where, like beaten children,
we all viscerally feared for ourselves.
The people have watched as loopholes emerged
in affairs of money,
banks developed the “liars’ loan”,
where you and I will lose our houses,
our jobs and all we have
just to let the government-sanctioned fat cats
keep their wealth and all their entitlements.
Like children who have seen all this,
like beaten women with nowhere to go,
we stumble now, still, unaware of the light,
as if light itself were too harsh to bear,
while deep, deep within, our souls know it’s time to sing.

Annelinde Metzner     
April 14, 2009

Michelle Obama at the DNC 2012

The First Family

Thank You's at the 2012 DNC