I got nothing better to give
no better angels in my soul.
Darkness is coming again.
It is a poker hand I was never going to win.
My heart sounds off beating
Thud da dud dud.

They stacked the deck and turned on the furnace
laid back and got ready to burn us
watching the ashes as they floated up
to dark thunder clouds.

Lightning flashes thud da dud dud
coursing through my burning blood.
Soldiers step on me,
while military boots stomp, splashing mud.
I hear them marching thud da dud dud.

In resisting despair’s darkest edges
I coopt that painful beat.
Strangers hear me singing thud da dud dud,
Till, I rest permanently in my defeat.

I once caught
Patriotism (capital p)
and it was like the
spirit of ol' Ronnie Reagan
had possessed me
and I wanted to fling
myself through the
rows
and rows
of houses that hold
the standards of modern suburbia
and coopt the values of the
chrisitan (lowercase c) flavor
of ethics
and I found myself surrounded
by emptiness
and the flag flying outside
had become a stranger to me
as I had become a stranger to my
country
and I looked to the horizon
trying to find a savior
and I couldn't see
past the sun