A New Flag

A black timber rattlesnake,
coiled and ready to strike,
sits on a yellow field where the
words DONT TREAD ON ME
loom large on a flag named for
Christopher Gadsden who,
inspired by Benjamin Franklin,
told the British if you send
convicted convicts to the colonies
you’ll get back rattlers that are
shown all over the United States
today by people who fly the
Gadsden flag outside their homes
to tell the world they don’t want to
be trod on, to which the world,
if it could speak, might reply,
how about hanging a banner
saying LET’S NOT TREAD ON
EACH OTHER or one that says
LET’S ALL WALK TOGETHER
WITH RESPECT.

Grandma was a tchatchke from
Teaneck whose shtick was to
hak a chanik her husband Harry,

a boychik from Brooklyn who hated it
when he heard bubbe meises from his
wife’s mishpocheh that were gornisht

compared to the tsuris he had to deal with
in the fercockt business world where
schlemiels and shlimazels were always

trying to schnorr him for a bissel of this
or a bissel of that with such chutzpah that if
you had to put it in a poem you would plotz

by Martin H. Levinson

I’d rather read the Sunday papers
than write this poem, for I can’t think
of anything to say and the yard needs
mowing, the car needs washing,

the tub needs scrubbing and I think
I’ll make myself a cup of coffee,
have a bit of the raisin scone I bought
this morning at Briermere Farms, fresh

from the oven and the finish of a
two-mile stroll along the banks of the
Peconic where I watched a vesper sparrow
circle lazy in the sky, a cumulus cloud

hang low on the horizon, an alice blue
kayak sail slowly past a McDonald’s
parking lot that abuts the water upon
which floated a white plastic coffee lid

and two cigarette stubs that seemed
horribly out of place in a place where
fluke, flounder, and striped bass hail from
and swans, geese, and Carolina ducks

also call home.

Vandals, Franks, and Gauls
from the far corners and
recesses of the Republic
that they understand darkly,
marching on orders from
a rogue emperor about to
be banished to warmer
climes and crimes not
charged with but waiting  
to be filed as they crash
through the windows
and doors of the Capitol
on a cloudy January day,
looking to hang those they
believe have deserted the
cause of keeping the infant
king on his throne where
he can spew his venom and
rage against America’s promise
that hard work and those
who work hard will have
a shot at a happy existence
and a piece of the American
Dream and traitors will be
tried, conspirators found
out, and leaders who
commit sedition will be
prosecuted to the full
extent of the law.

With King Con back in his
Mara-a-Lago manse with
its sycophantic members
and his criminal kin, with
the stench of the swamp
that has stunk up our capitol
now firmly ensconced ‘neath
the palm tress in Palm Beach,
let’s pour out the Prosecco,
and toast President Biden,
who along with VP Harris
and a coterie in Congress needs
to do something stunning to
keep Covid from overrunning
our cities and our states who
were abandoned to their fates
by an orange headed clown,
who let our nation down,
who let so many die, because
he didn’t try to martial our
nation’s might, against the
pandemic’s blight, playing
golf instead, playing with
our heads, but let’s not lose
ourselves in tears, rebound
from a terrible four years of
Twitter, Trump, and crazy fears
that our country would not last,
that fascists would amass,
lead our nation to bypass  
the norms and laws that have
kept us free and preserved our
beloved democracy, but the
danger is not gone, and if this
nation is to carry on, we must
stand up and not cower,
support those who are
in power.