Thinking of Betsy Ross

unraveling of American culture

 

 

A tattered flag
whips in the wind
ambivalent to
its troubled subject.

Picked up
at a dime store
planted in front of
a gas station,
less a
patriotic 

statement
then a
commercial

ploy.

Its colors 

faded,
fabric 

threadbare,
frayed edges
dangle in
torn sacrilege.

It should have
been solemnly
burned or buried
long ago.

Light illumes
once robust
now dim colors,
Old Glory
flapping
in the daylight
of a radiant sunshine
exposes its
translucence.

Muted colors
bleed away
stiff winds
stress
the cheap
aluminum pole
bereft of
its plastic eagle.

Our 

stars and stipes
mired in
the dirt,
tilted,
at a peculiar
angle,
a dangerous
tipping point.

The blest banner
surrounded
by a garden
of garbage
planted by
motorists
flinging away
wrappers
from a throwaway
society.

The flags hem
is loose
flapping
on its own.

Alone,
holding onto
a stubborn corner.

Gotta be,
Betsy Ross's
best stitch;
hoping
the hem holds,
or it all
falls apart.

Where is
Francis Scott?

No doubt
singing
a reverie
off key
to this
sacred banner
at a Magic game
in Orlando.

But today
I only hear
dirges.

Rally round
the flag boys.

Old Abe
kept the stars
intact
with the blood
of 600,000.

Our Federal
constellation
now endangered
of falling apart
again;
badly
in need of
rearrangement.

Maybe if we
added Puerto Rico
Guam and DC
we could keep
everybody interested.

A sure sign
of imperial
progress.

Hell,
for that matter
lets add Canada,
Mexico and Chile.

American's
need to
think big.

The original 13 stripes
run together
like pink puke
our founding
Revolutionists
Sam Adams
and Tommy Paine
expunged
while drunk on
Boston Pale Ale.

The white,
a promise of purity
is a cum stain
on a paramours dress
lying on floor
of the White House
Green Room.

The red remains true.

More bloodshed
will flow
much more
bloodshed.

Kids go to school
and blow away
fellow students;
and the best teachers
lay down their lives
trying to shield
their young charges.

Or Uzi’s singing
like a deathly nightingale
in urban projects.

Or a mother
brutalized to death
by her husband
who just got reorged
out of a
$100,000 job.

I sit and stitch
with invisible thread.

Putting patches together
of a nation I once knew;
or thought I knew

I sew longer and faster,
the quilted pastiche
of America;
trying to lash together
the fabric of this nation.

On top of old Smoky,
an on the lam Randolph
disappears into a
mountaintops
foggy mist;
to some Right to Lifers
an American hero;
to others
a mad bomber
terrorizing citizens and
murdering innocents.

A Gay boy in Wyoming is
strung up with barbed wire,
he is crucified like Christ.

Jesus’ wounds
run with fresh blood,
salved in
fresh vinegar again.

Black rappers
call themselves
Niggaz
with an attitude.

Malcolm X asks why
and WEB Dubois
sings Ole Man River
with Paul Robeson;
as a public official resigns
because he used the word
niggardly.

AIDS
continues
its tireless
global creep;
while fundamentalist’s
paint goats blood
on the doorjambs
and wait for the Passover
of a saintly
rapture.

William Jefferson
is impeached
and Senators jerkoff
over the centerfold
of the Starr Report;
while Tomahawks
scalp Baghdad,
Serbs cleanse Europe,
and Red China waits
in earnest,
attempting
eco-suicide.

In Texas
and California
the INS builds
a great wall
to keep Mexicans out.

They don’t want
the whole enchilada;
all they want is
a job at Taco Bell
and a chance
for a bite of
the Big Burrito.

A little salsa
might be exactly
what this
old flag needs.

I sit and stitch
the fabric of the nation;
mired in a blue field,
thinking of Betsy Ross,
wondering if she
was a good lay?


You Tube Music Video:
Gil Scott Heron, Winter In America


jbm
Paterson
11/98

Author's Note

posted to mark Betsy Ross's birthday

Reviews

[riskrapper]

Thanks Sheema,,, folk lore has it that Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag... this is an old poem... late 90's... it speaks about the unraveling of American culture... I make alot of references to American history and culture...no xenophobe just my cultural political lens...i do a lot of political and historical stuff... last winter did a lot in real time (TV) on the Arab Spring,,, Dancing Jinn of Cairo part of that... since its filtered through virtual media it loses its vitality somewhat... I'm particularly fond of Homage to Homs and Where's Rumi?... I like your writing... your poems were meant to be read... mine too... they work better read or screamed!!! I look forward to reading more of your work... cheers, beloved....jimmy

[SHEEMA HUQ]

I no nothing of Betsy Ross so forgive my ignorence, you have tackled a range of injustices here....from oil infirmiries to civil injustices and infringement of human rights, again...epic...burning carbon waste also has serious, life destroying consequences unless done in a specific way, i think....this piece certainly provoked many questions and thoughts, also you have tackled some seriously emotive issues considerately, very well done sir!