July 4, 2001

  • fourth of july.
       i’ve counted
    six thousand and twenty-six firecracker’s
    boom!  already.
       boom!     boom!
    got some drunken girl next door
    running out naked every hour on the hour
    firing off in indiscriminate directions
    a thirty round clip from
    an M2 submachine gun.
    shit!          someone might
    call the cops
    exceptin’ her husband,
    who’s the chief of police,
    is laying out on the front lawn
    passed out in uniform,
    all vomited and pissed,
    a burnt-out sparkler jutting
    majestically from his mouth.
    ka—boom!             a massive gunpowdered steel-nosed
    acme rocket pierces aluminum-sided wall
    and explodes in brilliant festivity in my living room.
    i sit studiously considering the roman
    of this mutant roman candle thinking
    …somewhere tacitus turning in his grave.
    but what the hell!      screw tacitus!
    it’s the fourth!
    the day when all good, patriotic
    maniacs of America are proudly lunaticing
    their minds in uproarious prankstering merriment
    and deep dragon volcano booms!
    singing all the while:
    remember Lexington!        remember Concord!
    remember to buy more beer!
    hell, yes!     hell, yes!
    and i, too, a maniac!
    a real fucking yankee doodle maniac!
    up now with sufficient wine
    and out to the backyard
    with assorted red, white, and blue cherry bombs,
    mosaicing Old Glory in potent resplendence
    my prize Ohioan humus rose garden.
    then   ignite!      and:
    earth and flower petals
    in a grand simultaneous-exploding     jack—a—room!    delight.
    o, joyous good American smoke and dust!
    and i, then, dancing the earth with the drunken tears
    of a flag-loving, fist-waving patriot, screaming:
    jack—a—room!         jack—a—room!
    may you ever boom!, America
    long may you boom!

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