PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO A LITHIUM BATTERY

The church bells toll from the echoes of shackles; democracy's funeral commenced.
Lady Liberty's second line procession enters the cockpit.
No jazz, no soul, no spirit, no patriotism.
The patinated goddess sinks into the silt, her torch extinguished.
Elastic Shadows stretch across the harbor, implanting cataracts of apathy that obscure travesty
Chisels desecrate Lakota grandfathers on the dollar, masking them in white.
In heels, frills, and a powdered wig, he crosses ice flows and Delaware currents—
To end tyranny, to birth another.
Contingency is sometimes fatal.
Pink and blue! Delicate and robust!
A sex pendulum swings across the centuries.
Paris is burning. I poured the petrol, dropped the match,
watched the flames bloom.
Franklin’s tights, Jackson’s ponytail—exceptions to the rule.
But your contemporary renditions demolish the walls I built;
they must be my kindling.
Your vogues and contours pierce like lead—
refusing to cater to the biblical binary.
I return fire.
You hear the shrapnel land on your desk
as you call your mother from the last stall.
Flee the purple pope with gout.
Mayflowers wilt where they land,
poisoned petals bleeding into stolen soil.
Your fish carcass fertilized my corn,
which was once yours,
but you believe the fish is no ones
while I proclaim it all mine.
I cannot recognize these digital-age pilgrims; their color blinds me.
I see only the orange embers in the people’s house.
Its warmth, its glow, it captures my spirit—
even as my flesh flakes and the ionic pillars collapse.
I forgot the roof will crush me too.
Aliens plow the field, propagate my yield—
but my god’s wrath befalls them. Sic ’em!
Pledge allegiance to a lithium battery.
To the republic, for which is crippled
Let the toxic fumes
billowing from emerald mine caverns decay our glorious parchment
We are all born ridiculous,
all rooted in primordial soup,
yet our miraculous cognizance has caged us—
an electrified fence, a maze of walls.
When one of us reaches for greener pastures,
We all feel the shock.