January 6, 2021
Out on the lawn, a hot dog vendor
It finally took trespassing hands
and broken glass, crying flags, and smoke,
not cigars, but canisters for war.
The paintings and statues only watch
with side-eyes. Would they be cut, painted
with a shade of flat black, forced to walk
in our full streets of loud sedition
off wire hanger and naked plinth?
Out on the lawn, a hot dog vendor,
stuffing pink feed into maskless mouth,
selling comfort for a weak tribe where
craving is too much for the toxic.
Later, in a white hotel lobby,
left alone, unshackled, they clatter
beer glasses and flag poles, wrapped in red,
sealed in the stone of lies and more lies,
scrolling to sharpen their broken sword,
lost in riotous calm, pretending
to be hurt, and actually hurt
by spasm-stabbing their own closed eye.
© Trapper Markelz 2021
Form: Five stanzas, quatrains, nine syllables per line.
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