JEREMIAD: "LAMENTATIONS FOR THE ECONOMIC DEPRESSION IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" BY NKWETATANG NGUEKIE

Behold, dear brethren, for the USA is dying

Speedily in the hands of Donald Trump, drying

Like cadaver in the Kalahari Desert, frying

On a chafing dish, and in excruciating pain everyday crying.

Now at my post-middle age,

I raise my voice and lament for this economic wreckage

Caused by Donald Trump’s ruthless rage

Which has put everyone on the disadvantage.

William Shakespeare’s Gloucester says it loud and clear,

“I stumbled when I saw,” and it pulls a hot tear

From my eyes seeing Trump determined to pieces tear

The centuries of legacy painstakingly engraved so dear.

Is this that mighty USA whose economy did burgeon

To magnanimous proportions now being thrown into the dungeon?

Is this that Promised Land with health solutions like a surgeon

Where citizens of countries all over the world did sojourn?

Oh, tell me that what I see

Is not that great American Dream nurtured in Tennessee

And nourished in Milwaukee,

But a Hollywood movie acted in Tuskegee.

How on earth can it be possible

For the USA to be so broke and feeble

To the extent of companies laying off thousands of employees to rubble?

It is not just terrible – it is horrible.

How on earth can a US citizen

Lack a job in his country at his plumage of twenty-seven

With a myriad of professional skills counted from one to a dozen?

It is an indication that the US economy is frozen.

American citizens, rise!

Rise now, else, to your greatest surprise,

You won’t even have rice

To eat in the coming months if you don’t pay a protest price.

The pain of exorbitantly high tariffs on importations,

The pain of mass deportations

Including pregnant women and children in delicate conditions

Is more than a plethora of abominations.

Chinua Achebe rightly said, “No Longer at Ease.”

No American is now at ease, because they are not in peace.

Dear Donald Trump, review your policies please,

Else, the nationwide protests will not cease.

Like Bob Marley and the Wailers, all Americans now wail,

For this hail

Of crushing economic hardship has caught them by the tail,

Indicating that the Trump administration will fail.

Oh, who will tell Thomas Jefferson today,

Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt now in eternity far way

Who fought with might and main to find the way

That this great America is now at the verge of disarray?

See what the pigheadedness

And self-centeredness

Of just one man has done to the wellness

Of the greatest nation on earth and its good neighbourliness.

A great nation once enshrined on civil rights and liberties

In addition to a plenitude of equalities

Is today severing like a river and its tributaries,

And being tossed in mid-air like a bunch of cutleries.

Dear protesters, stand strong till you open a new page,

For Thucydides did say in his old age,

“The secret of happiness is freedom to its advantage,

And the secret of freedom is courage.”

Joshua McCarter Simpson did mourn,

“O! Ye wicked men, take warning at morn,

For God will send His judgement down,” and even the unborn

Will feel the negative impact of the good things we leave undone.

Come to my rescue, John Francis O’ Mahony,

And give me some honey

To eat and bring my body and soul together in harmony,

Because I will soon go on a long journey.

My fellow protesters, verily verily I say onto you today,

Ride on, till the price of your welfare you pay,

For Columbus did to his devastated ship Captain say,

“Sail on, and on, till we find a safe place to sit and pray.”

© NKWETATANG SAMPSON NGUEKIE,

The Pilot Centre for The Humanities,

Bamenda, Cameroon, 13/06/2025

WhatsApp: +237 677 26 19 86

The poet persona complains over the economic depression in the United States of America. The bard remembers the great leaders that made America comfortable in the past periods. The voice tells the American protesters to stand strong in Faith of the best that they are fighting for.