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The Pledge

Fellow nationals,
I pledge you a swift war,
a clean war,
no fallout, no rubble,
no burning orphans screaming.
Our superior weapons kill
without fire or blast.
From a distance,
instruments home in,
accurate phasers fire.
Wherever the tyrant bunkers
or the general plots,
wherever the enemy soldier stalks,
the ray will find him.
The ash takes human form
before it scatters.
Some see a fleeting beauty in it.

To be liberated
by such glorious and immaculate force!
When we enter the salvaged city,
tickertape and rose petals will whiten the night sky,
Roman candles brighten it.
There will be dancing and rousing melody.
Joyful tears will be shed beyond measure
and rinse from every stinging eye

the irritating cinders of the dead.





Here at the Circus

So many rings, so much hokum and commotion!
A woman on the high trapeze
unhooks her feather bra, undoes her leather thong
and pulls a wad of greenbacks from her shaven twat--
it´s the most familiar act here,
maybe that´s why I so promptly note it.
One has to work up a certain courage
before one takes in the Id Tamer in the next ring.
The animals are fierce,
their great maw jaws snapping and growling,
their wide clawed paws swiping at the cracking whip.
Need it be stated? The Tamer is fiercer:
his immobile face lacks effect or affect,
his stiff posture intimates no life force at all.
The Creed Swallower is much more mellow a fellow.
Pudgy and jolly, he seems so well fed!
The brown snake enters at one end, exits the other,
in a seamless, never-ending loop.
Next to him, the Cranial Contortionist
lifts the tops of his skull off like a beanie
and ties his brain into fantastic knots.
When his left brain pretzels with his right brain,
he filibusters with great authority
on the futility of language and the decadence of art.
This only energizes the trio of poets above him,
who struggle to stay balanced on a tightrope sheathed in rime.
Perched on one another´s shoulders,
they are a triumph of grace and perseverance
though few in the audience watch them.
Instead we are distracted by the Radiation Eater,
who is giving off the most intriguing glow,
and by a swarm of motley beings
honking and sneering and sticking out tongues
and gamboling on the backs of donkeys and elephants.
The Little Pundits and the Talking Heads!
I had heard of them, of course,
but never realized how tiny they were
though they make a large and mesmerizing noise.
Suddenly they clasp hands in a great circle around a jumbo net
as the Big Top rips open
and the Intercontinental Human Missile makes his landing.
He´s come over the pole and is still quite blue about the lips.
It´s been a colorful show, all right, but now the lights dim
and an albino angel appears in the center ring,
riding bareback on a matching horse,
riding in circles and circling in the saddle,
kicking up sawdust and straw-laced dung,
brandishing a golden trumpet and crying out in rapture:
Come one, come all.
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