this fourth of july
felt more like
a birthday party
in a hospice
as we smear frosting
on the sedated
soon to be corpse
putrefying before
our horrified faces

i have hit that age
where death looms
watching for any sort
of slip up in which
to swoop in and snatch
my blackened soultatters
everyday is a new name
added to the registry
of burnt out embers
yet each seems to lurk
incrementally closer
to where i am hiding

when they said the average
life expectancy of a
democracy is roughly
two hundred and fifty years
you expect some variance
like predicting the weather
not watching blowfly larvae
squirm under the fluttering
eyelids as the american dream
is sodomized by incompetence
and cowards sit idly with
heads buried in the corporate
assholes of the true custodians
of legal authority over the
husk fitfully trumpeting a
coda in flatulent notes
whimpering to be euthanized

and somehow despite my valiant
attempts at sedating myself
into the great emptiness with
drug and drink and making each
and every wrong decision with
a devil may care laissez faire
self sabotaging rhinestone flair
i have to watch democracy die
when all i ever wanted was
a dirt nap of my fucking own
but that isn’t an option when
wehaveatwentyfourhournewscycle
documenting the inside of this
overflowing truck stop toliet
afterthetaintedlettuceincident
at the rusty trombone’s world
famous all you can eat taco bonanza
withthethirdlongestsaladbar
in all of the greater tri-state area

a man dressed like uncle sam
just waddled past my window
his striped pantaloons around
his ankles with a burning sparkler
inserted into his swaying urethra
while an overweight bald eagle
stares longingly at the golden arches
and i can’t help but imagine this
is what hunter was chasing out
in the nevada desert sometime back
in another millennium where he first
spotted the signs of infection bloom

cicadas and stupid fuck poets
are the only things spoiling
this rainy shitty night