July 4, 2002

• 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!

  • 8:07 am
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