America – poems 2 die for

SHUT

make
America
great again

send in
the Pied Pipers
with tear gas
and pistols

and pepper balls
too strong for tacos

shepherd, corall,
light
the big bonfire
square the
circle

make the flag big
exceptional, exponential,
bigger and bigger
stick it up
on a pole
tall as
an ICBM or
at least
puny cruise missile

expanding, contracting,
what need
Monroe, Donroe
doctrine
when flag shroud
swathes the planet

no more
    talk of inside or outside
Rams, Patriots, Broncos,
Seahawks
   there can,
must
be only one:
undisputed world champions
ball in
     the endzone, ball
always next to your desk

and
in the meanwhile, as
the spotlights
turn
on
themselves, do morph
into searchlights

stars
on the flag eclipsing
the real
stars
themselves

no sense asking
where the pipers
took us
what did
with our children

was the
suicide of grace, assassination
of elegance

took
us to this place
gate
closed, locks snapped shut

EARLY

going to bed early
want to, and so let me,
sleep through thr most
gorgeous
and most
harrowing dreams

and those dreams
that provide a mixture,
a melange
of the gorgeous
and what is harrowing

a new, alien world,
full of new vistas, images,
stories, beauties,
fears and horrors

where the monstrous
otherness we fear
is what
we brought ourselves

so leave me in this ghost
world of such promise and
achievement
and, yes, abject failure

wake me
if ever
it should set itself
the task of a journey
of transformation

both outside and
in, searching in the hope
that it did
not die

can still
be found
lomg thought lost,
murdered, imprisoned,
coopted

its
true, better self

going to bed early
so
much to sleep through

SIDE

smokestack lightnin’

wild side
other side
flip
side

bit
on the side

I hears you
can’t do nothing
when twelve bar slide
or blow
that blues harp

so much death in that ocean
under that mud-brown river

hell yes

I’ve studied that time
saw how
it lost
its colour

all that
glorious grey

war never over
till its over

divide outside always
first inside

AT APPOMATTOX COURTHOUSE

AT APPOMATTOX COURTHOUSE

proceedings were held up
because the burgers and cokes
had not arrived

then they
stopped shirts, swopped swords

slavery remained the elephant in the room

it was either kiss and makeup
or unconditional surrender

Arnold Schwartzenegger was playing General Grant
the Rock (naturally)
was playing the ghost of Stonewall Jackson
Charlie Sheen
was totally miscast as Robert E Lee

he rolled ten singles in succession
and so Vicksburg fell
and Pickett’s charge was defeated

unfortunately this doesn’t mean shit
because the Japs and the Krauts
invaded on alternate history Netflix

they promised to
have a comnerative reunion meeting
when the time felt right

slavery remained the elephant in the room

(a room
nobody bothered to, didn’t
even think to clean)