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Oh Shambling Great Walls Full Of Woe

Posted on December 3, 2025April 8, 2026 by Alice Spurlock

A patriotic poem written on Thanksgiving, 2025.

1.
What can you see,
From behind your walls,
Oh fair America,
Born of slaughter?

You design your cities,
To keep out the poor,
While swallowing us up,
To build your fortunes

You have risen to become,
A violent monument to greed,
Until there are too few left,
To cry foul

And now we choke,
On the smoke of corpses,
We bleed from millions,
Of walking wounds

2.
You wish to be great again,
Ignoring the red gore,
That greases the gears,
Of your tragedy machine

You steal,
Then dare us,
Like the thug you are,
To try to take it back

The worst sort of man,
Made into a nation,
Rapist and pillager,
Murderer and thief

Oh shambling great walls,
Full of woe and pain,
Expanding always to surround,
And enclose the world

3.
I was raised to love you,
To serve your causes,
To fight your wars,
And complete your missions

By a patriot you used up,
For 40 long and grueling years,
And then threw away,
To rot and fester

You are eating us all,
Devouring our precious lives,
One workday at a time,
Until we are gone

I just wish you were someone that,
I just wish you were a country that,
I just wish you fought for reasons that,
I could believe in

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Art: John Trumbull, “The Declaration Of Independence”, (1819)

6 thoughts on “Oh Shambling Great Walls Full Of Woe”

  1. Gerald says:
    December 3, 2025 at 10:26 PM

    Very well done. Thank you. 🙂

    Reply
    1. Alice Adora Spurlock says:
      December 4, 2025 at 8:13 PM

      I’m glad it spoke to you, Gerald. Thank you for reading.

      Reply
      1. Gerald says:
        December 4, 2025 at 8:22 PM

        A lot of that post spoke to me. Seems that you and I have had similar upbringing, and had to weather some of the same ordeals coming up. Thanks for writing that.

        Reply
        1. Alice Adora Spurlock says:
          December 4, 2025 at 8:45 PM

          As an autistic person, I often find it difficult to read intentions. I often don’t know what to say, even though my Mercury in Virgo makes me want to talk and write all the time.

          In those moments I reach out to my goddess Aphrodite, and She almost always says the same thing: “Lead with your vulnerability. Put your heart right out there on your sleeve and show it to people.”

          That’s how I write my work, most of the time. It seems to work. And somehow I’m always so surprised when it works. My gift with words when I was young was actually evil sometimes and just harmful at others. I had to learn to guide my Mercury energy with my Venus energy, essentially. But when I did, it started working. The words flow in a different way and I know what to say.

          I’m so glad it spoke to you, truly. Be well, care Frater.

          Reply
  2. Janus Blume says:
    December 3, 2025 at 10:31 PM

    You speak for many

    Reply
    1. Alice Adora Spurlock says:
      December 4, 2025 at 8:13 PM

      Sadly, I think I do.

      Thanks for reading, Janus. ❤️

      Reply

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