Poems inspired by postmodernism
Ode to the American Idea
America in school I had to pledge to you.
My loyalty and devotion allegedly yours
From the mouth of an American boy.
You screamed at me from the room corner
“Pledge allegiance to me” yes, flag,
of the United States of America.
And honoring the misery and waste for which it stands
As one nation,
Under God?
Invisible.
With suppression and vengeance for all
And I would paint the red white and blue
In greyscale and dim the lights
And see if it meant anything then.
What makes my country the sweet land of liberty?
It is the same dirt under China.
And evil Russia.
And poor black Africa.
Of thee I write.
Land where my mother died
A happy Russian communist.
Land of the pilgrim’s pride
Up America’s old creaky spine to where our cords are
Snipped
And we cannot talk though we are free to sing.
I sing back to you America to whom I pledge.
Thy name I love.
I love thee for making it so easy for me.
All I have to do is sit, sit back and breathe my air of toxins
While the companies control my life
And the politicians for which I voted do whatever.
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look in the mirror and see that scar on your chest?
My TV tells me another one died for you today.
I see the wound now look at yours and bleed back.
What the hell is wrong with you,
Put a teardrop on your own sleeve one time.
My heart with rapture fills like that above.
O say America, can you see?
Without the dawn’s early light,
When your red, white, and blue are no more than
Grey?
Diet Howl
Society burns on the sidewalks under feet
As I watch ceilings fall on the heads of the poor
When the madman steps too hard on the ground above.
“Hold back the edges of your gowns, ladies,
we are going through hell” I hear Williams say.
Well, let’s go then,
No sense in trying to stop now.
Down the roads lined with people
Gay, straight, black, white, laughing, yelling, loving, killing,
And otherwise ignoring the bird who flies
And shits on the stone statue’s head.
Moloch burn my children as growing up in this
They are doomed to the inferno regardless,
But burn yourself if you try to keep them from rebelling.
To Canaan I will follow you with my knife,
Crazy eyed and fierce,
And perforate your veins as my friends did
Who got old and tired of smelling their children’s searing flesh.
I want to seek my vision though to them I am blind.
We do what we can because we can and by doing what we can we never can’t.
77 stanzas I could say about what we do to keep our way.
A crazy rant, ban my book if you must.
That just means more people will get it.
Wherever the crazies are, I will sit with them.
I will hold their hands and lay awake while our America goes to sleep.
We can lay unprotected and crazy together
And drool on our pillows and on the statue’s head and in America’s eyes
Like the crazy little babies we are.
Mind on Naomi
My mother, my mother died, my mother died today.
Tomorrow she will lie, dead at her funeral,
Today my mother died, today.
I am here, she is there, today, tomorrow, forever, she is dead.
I am here but cannot be there, though my mother died,
Today.
Naomi, your mind got twisted,
Like your dark Russian hair around your finger when you sat in the park.
Today your hair will be straight, you are dead.
Your thoughts, straight, dead.
Your body, straight,
Dead.
Naomi, your heart stopped beating,
Beating for an endless thought,
Your thoughts loop in your head like the rings under your tired eyes.
Tomorrow you get to sleep.
Forever, you get to sleep, you are dead.
Though I am here.
Your funeral I shall not make
Though my eyes will not wake
For I am not dead, like you, and I think
Of you, and stay awake.
Colorless, wilted, burned out rose,
Lay on my mother’s chest.
Though you are not pretty you are a flower,
Just as she was, and still is, though she’s dead.
Her mind was popped,
Her heart has stopped,
But a rose nonetheless she tried to be.