Poem; 2022.
The response to the killing of another dove,
Is the coldness of a metal Boeing.
The discourse of a psychosis supplanting love,
Is a machine gun’s restless mowing.
Through that grandiose immolation,
Rose the phoenix of a new world, a new nation.
Though unlike the hope implied in the allegory,
A new trifecta’s birthed: God, Guns, a flag’s phantasmal Glory.
In a world full of countless dead, quiescent gods,
There stands a nation under one, against all odds.
Like the cross did of Jesus, the flag demands blood,
As it spills, we wash our hands, yet, as one, applaud.
I lay here, like a fetus once more, many Jackys deep,
But no sting of alcohol can jolt my heart from its sleep.
Heavy, metal angels combust outside my windows clear,
The bullets clink like church bells to my ever-ringing ears,
But The Pearly Gates don’t open, can’t move to climb their stairs,
Umbilical severance from my torch-bearing mother’s care,
Senseless below my chest, cared for like a child by au pairs.
Yet when I see that flag, I greet it, with an old shaking,
In my mind, I wave on high the flag of my unmaking.