XXV.

Today even the cops are calm; trees
reflect in their helmets, while they
oversee a polite public march
Excuse Me quiet around the capital.

Here is an antique machine’s trial run,
atoms unaware of voice and bond.
Say “Citizenry” and envision ten years
of stadium speakers sounding like us.

The President, inside his house, dines
without concern, says he loves democracy.
He continues along with his course,

thinks nothing of citizens who knock and
go away. The difference, dear reader, between
request and demand is a readied red brick.

XXVI.

Walking through the mall, I spot uniformed
men and women in Banana Republic,
sorting supplies, and I think this war
is bought in tank tops, battleships

blown by sales of linen, televisions,
answering machines, boots, dog houses,
internet connections, all point to this
predicament: even banners of peace

are bought with dollars of war. Our weakness,
this slimming gluttony by which we live,
is the blue felt collection plate of a crusade.

So we walk with guilty purses, culpable
billfolds, murder made in simple transactions,
by generals unaware of their medal.


XXVII.

Here’s to that awkward age when you’ve seen
the street more than once, and sense yourself
annoyed by gravity, and how firmly all things
cling to the earth. Here’s to that fearful time

when circumstance falls like fencing, and you
feel, at destiny’s first sighting, a welling fight.
You long for upheaval, so strongly that
a revolution’s direct object is irrelevant.

There, then, lies a dangerous desire: to want
the world to do your work in metaphor.
You want to be astonished, beat fate,

be renewed by a new order. Alas,
a revolt born of boredom sends you
running naked into requested chaos.

XXVIII.

On my way to town, I pass these plastic
pods that all landed last night, gray fans
humming as if on rockets, convex dishes
making synchronized swivels toward the sky.

Exurbia revolves around its satellites,
its complex codes being beamed by
leaders with botaxed brows and box
lamps reflected at retina’s edge.

Through this lunar landscape, flags stick
beside well houses, from tree stumps,
on SUVs’ backgates: red and white

barcodes bought and displayed as parking passes.
When the music stops, all the chairs get cul-de-saced: Support this war or be a ghost of nations.