The skies over America
are vibrant as a Pollock painting
and dissonant as a Schoenberg
symphony. They’re the canvas
on which we scrawl the graffiti
of our lives.
Ours is a garden where
every flower may flourish,
bitter nightshade and evening
primrose, a Mendelian greenhouse
where hybrids are the rule
and whore lies down with priest.
We’re enamored of the camera.
If we could, we’d like to film
the destruction of the world,
even though no one would be left
to watch it explode a second time
except a few seagulls.
America was born to immigrant
parents in a sharecropper’s shack.
Three acres and a mule were its
only possessions. It was suckled
on hard work, cheap whiskey,
tobacco, cornbread and collard greens,
and the promise of eternal life.
The skies over America
are crumbling. They’re responding
well to therapy. They need
more antioxidants, plastic surgery,
yoga lessons. They’re weeping.
The skies over America are
closed for remodeling.
Matt Flumerfelt
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-skies-over-america/
