FREE-FORM BASTILLE
Watch, look and listen to see;
they've placed the new chairs
along the lawn, upon the grass,
by the walkway, where people pass.
Straight lines, as a badger would make.
Unsettled squirrels race about; the
pure birds are singing in the air.
Everything else, hanging limpidly by,
wilts. The heat keeps rising, the light
itself is hot. On the tabletop, someone
arranges water cups and lemonade.
I feel as if I've been here before.
-
Some Civil War days, when the old,
ragged band tried playing beneath the
painted gazebo. When those wounded
fellows, still cut-up and bandaged, tried
stumbling by to salute. At something.
Red, white and blue bunting, hanging from
rafters and fences, where ladies sat smiling.
Keen to be seen, yet, in the same way,
sorrowful to be there. A few horses shit
where they may - swatting with
tails all those flies.
Watch, look and listen to see;
they've placed the new chairs
along the lawn, upon the grass,
by the walkway, where people pass.
Straight lines, as a badger would make.
Unsettled squirrels race about; the
pure birds are singing in the air.
Everything else, hanging limpidly by,
wilts. The heat keeps rising, the light
itself is hot. On the tabletop, someone
arranges water cups and lemonade.
I feel as if I've been here before.
-
Some Civil War days, when the old,
ragged band tried playing beneath the
painted gazebo. When those wounded
fellows, still cut-up and bandaged, tried
stumbling by to salute. At something.
Red, white and blue bunting, hanging from
rafters and fences, where ladies sat smiling.
Keen to be seen, yet, in the same way,
sorrowful to be there. A few horses shit
where they may - swatting with
tails all those flies.
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