Flag

It's the origin of our independent sin,
draped in patriotism of the blood
red he's dead and we're ahead now
head of state proclaiming the fate of our
peers with the fear of democracy; icy
white of our might as missle streaks into
starless night and soundless nightengales muted
chirps hale the steadfast tenacity of our tenitis;
less the ibis of id and ignoring the ego
of our placebo pleasure pill of freedom ...

Dark muddy hues of ocean blue scramble to gain
a foothold in places less visited by our Corporate God
churches search through dirt and lurch to attention
among the heart of industrial colonialism.

Fifty stars for fifty states of passion; cash in fifty late great
emperors, kings, god-heads; nifty ways to drain the last
drop of bloodmoney from well-oiled turnips and turn third
worlds to also-rans in the blink of a sniper's bullet.

Thirteen bars in suicide cars lift the par a little
higher. Maybe Cobain wasn't too insane when he put
pounds to pressure on the vertical smile of a trigger. Lean
too far to catch mean old czars and leave our bellys
bared but too lazy to care until another man with
a plan runs sidelong into a band of bankers on
Wall Street.

Then it's all about Operation Fuck
That Guy where the wise and gray entrench
themselves in mile deep bunkers and mull the ways
to force insurgents from caves at the low low cost
of a few thousand twentysomethings that should someday
instead turn wise and gray themselves and talk about
fixing Social Security.

That's thirteen stripes culling worldwide heights
climbing a hilltop of baby wipes – take
one per hand to cleanse besmirched land while the
band of hopefulls know it's a mound of tripe but
can't gripe about it either for fear of The Man
holding an infinite handfull of poison candy canes and
transvestational lipstick poised for the kiss to end
all negotiation.

There was a time when patriotism ran long in the tooth
but short in the gullet until the sand ground down
our canines to single-celled organisms with invasion on
the brain(less) function. Our aomeba dictator yelling
“Step off my Kool-Aid, bitch!” throwing the Reece's Pieces
trail and we're phoning home, baby, we're all-in on a two seven
offsuit while the OBL original badass holds pocket
aces and a hundred pounds of well-placed dynamite.

We used to believe.

We used to conceive greater dreams.

We used to not need the constant espousal of our better-than-thouness.

We used to believe. In us.

Flag by Michael W. Hyde is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.