a lament for Walt Whitman's America
to cameras
no, more wars! the chant
echoes, echoing
around the Congress chamber
swelled with the yawp of USA!
FYI: The joshi (prefatory note), “a lament for Walt Whitman's America,” serves as the thematic anchor of the tanka. By invoking the “barbaric yawp” from Song of Myself by Walt Whitman, the tanka establishes a pointed irony: what Whitman envisioned as a raw, soulful cry of individual liberation and democratic vitality has here been transformed into a partisan, nationalistic roar.
And For more about the use of "joshi," see "To the Lighthouse" post, "Joshi (Prefatory Note) as a Poetic Device."
