The Leader of the Free Fish

Wed, Feb 5 at 4:03 PM

    The Leader of the Free Fish

the beats had

          their own pronouns:

Hipster, far-out man

the Dude's writing again.

poetry stuck in his beard

like crumbs of leftovers

Mouth agape with words

almost emerging with diction

his tongue wagging the flag

Oh America

         I Loved you once

but now

         I don't know where

I live

                 that old block 

                          became a throwaway pronoun

like "it" or "its" or

"it's"really something how

we have turned on each other

like angry Piranhas 

destroying an already corpse

that America has become

         fish food---

Chub for the sharks

a Mandolin plays sad

as a nation corkscrews itself

           into oblivion's eddy

the wasteland president

is dumpster diving

into a lake of black water

a Blind man swallowing sand

and flags and other countries

in a monotony of surprises 

day in and day out

he is a hipster, a far-out man

a dude writing again

who has no alphabet

to "bet" from

but gladly gambles

feeding the sharks with

recklessly proseful fingers.

erin-cilberto

2/5/25