The Bellamy Brothers by Michael Ceraolo

 The Bellamy Brothers

The poet is having a little joke here

                                                      Although

Edward's daughter Marian called me Uncle Frank,

we were first cousins, not brothers

Edward was five years older,

                                           and

we grew up a few hundred miles apart;

he became a writer and I a minister,

                                                     but

we both came to the belief that

"It had meant liberty

for great corporations

to oppress the people"

He offered a solution in his great book;

I started one of the first Nationalist clubs

created to bring about the society

based on the principles of the book,

                                                     and

preached about those principles as well

My espousal of said principles

didn't sit well with some of my parishioners,

                                                                so

I resigned my ministry

A few years later, as part of the run-up

to the Columbus quatercentenary,

I got the write a utopian yearning of my own,

originally twenty-two words,

later twenty-three with the addition of the second to

so that its cadence was better,

something that's now thirty-one words

(and not improved by the additions

made throughout the years,

                                         including

the two words added many years after my death)

I didn't protest the additions and changes

made during my lifetime because

my authorship was questioned,

                                               though

I believe today I am accepted

as the author of the piece

You know the current thirty-one words,

so judge for yourself if they're

an improvement over my twenty-three:

I pledge Allegiance to my Flag

and to the Republic for which it stands,

one nation indivisible,

                                 with

liberty and justice for all