in da USAIII

freed from verse by cockroach spindles
and the heffalumps march cool
Laconia stiffens in the breeze
like the ghost of Leonidas
waiting forever
to join battle
and a-hundred-thousand seasons pass uphill
engaged in the highest office
paying tribute to the past
with the present
on a spit

behold ye of little faith our father is a black man proud and smart
yet still the fat man shrill can holler day and night for bread
no word yet on when it's coming
an advisor will be with you shortly
in the understaffed bay of pigs
of the office cubicles
arrayed forever in formation
above an ever bustling street
where a scruffy forgotten
always forgotten
and ill-begotten
son of liberty
in Jesus' name
dies alone