I half expected
to see him playing
a kitschy fiddle while Seattle burned.
I read that Nero too
was a man-baby
with an insatiable idlittle else
I witnessed the Brownshirts mace
a little girl
gas a daisy-chain of moms singing
renditions of lullabies.
They even gassed a masked
Athenian goddess who descended
from Elysian fields above.
I witnessed them pluck
out a reporter’s eye
with a rubber bullet
whose eye scarcely
offended thee.
Look at us now
on broken knees eyes swollen shut.
Blind to what direction to pray.
After Seattle burns
there will be no
Phoenix rising out
of the ashes.
No shiny city on the hill.
You will only find
more ashes &
a charred bible lying
at the broken steps of St. John’s.
Christ’s words
redacted.
