1.
From my
uneasy bed
at the L’Enfant,
a train's pensive
horn breaks the
sullen lullaby of
an HVAC’s hum;
interrupting the
mechanical
reverie of its
steadfast
night watch,
allowing my ear
to discern
the stampede
of marauding
corporate Visigoths
sacking the city.

The cacophony
of sloven gluttony,
the ***** songs of
unrequited privilege
and the unencumbered
clatter of radical
entitlement echoes
off the city’s cold
crumbling stones.

The unctuous
bellows of the
victorious pillagers
profanely feasting
pierces the
hanging chill
of the nations
black night.

Their hoots
deride the train
transporting
the defeated
ghosts of
Lincoln’s last
doomed regiments
dispatched in vain
to preserve a
peoples republic
in a futile last stand.

The rebels have
finally turned the tide,
T Boone Pickett’s
Charge succeeds,
sending the ravaged
Grand Army of the
Republic sliding
back to the Capitol,
in savage servility,
gliding on squeaky
ungreased wheels
ferrying the
Union’s dead
vanquished
defenders to
unmarked graves
on Potters Field.

The Rebels
joyous yell
bounces off
the inert granite
stones of the
soulless city.

The spittle
of salivating
vandals drips
over the
spoils of war
as they initiate the
disassemblage,
the leveling and
reapportionment
of the grand prize.

The clever
oligarchs
have laid claim
to a righteous
reparation
of the peoples
assets for
pennies on the
dollar.

Their wholly
bought politicos
move to transfer
distressed assets
into their just
stewardship
through the
holy justice
of privatization
and the sound
rationale of
free market
solutions.

In the land of the
pursuit of property,
nimble wolf PACs
of swift 527, LLCs
have fully
metastasized
into personhood;
ascending to
the top of the
food chain in
America’s
voracious
political culture;
bestriding
the nation to
compel the
national will
to genuflect
to the cool facility
of corporate
dominion.

As the
inertial ******
of the plaintive
locomotive
fades into
another old
morning of
recalcitrant
Reaganism,
it lugs its
ambivalent
middle class
baggage toward
it’s fast expiring
future.

I follow
the dirge
down to
the street
as the ebbing
sound fades
into the gloom
of the
burgeoning
morning,
slowly
replacing the
purple twilight
with a breaking
day of cold gray
clouds framing
silhouettes of
cranes busily
constructing
a new city.

The personhood of
corporations need
homes in our new
republic; carving
out new
neighborhoods
suitable for the
monied citizens
of our nation.

First amongst
equals, the best
corporate governance
charters form
the foundation of
the republic’s
new constitution.
Civil rights
are secondary
to the freedom
of markets; the
Bill of Rights
are economically
replaced by the
cool manifests
of Bills of Lading.

The agents of
laissez faire
capitalism
nibble away
at the city’s
neighborhoods
one block at a time;
while steady winds
blows dust off
the National Mall.

Layers of the
peoples plaza are
plained away with
each rising gust.  

History repeats
itself as the Joad’s
are routed from their
land once again.

A clever
mixed use
plan of
condos and
strip malls
is proposed
to finally help the
National Mall
unlock its true
profit potential.

As America’s
affection for
federalism fades
the water in
the reflection pool
is gracefully drained.

We the people
can no longer
see ourselves.

The profit
potential of
industry is
preferred over
the specious
metaphysical
benefits
of reflection.

The grand image,
the rich pastiche,
the quixotic aroma
of the national
melting ***
is reduced to the
sameness of the
black tar that lines
the pool and the
swirling eddies of
brown dust circling
the cracked indenture.

From his not so
distant vantage point,
Abe ponders the
empty pool wondering
if the cost of lives
paid was a worthy
endeavor of preserving
the ****** union?  
Has the dear prize
won perished from
this earth?

Was the illusive
article of liberty  
worth its weight in
the blood expended?

Did the people ever
fully realize the value
of government
by the people,
for the people?

Did citizens of
the republic
assume the
responsibilities to
protect and honor
the rights and privileges
of a representative
government?

Now our idea
and practice of
civil rights is measured
and promoted as far as
it can be justified by
a corporate ROI, a
shareholder dividend,
an earmark or a political
donation to a senators
unconnected PAC.

The divine celestial
ledgers balancing
the rights and
privilege of free people
drips with red ink.  

Liberty, equality
fraternity are bankrupt
secular notions
condemned as
expensive
liberal seditions;
hatched by
UnHoly Jacobins,
the atheist skeptics
during the dark times
of the Age of Enlightenment.

Abe ponders
the restoration
of Washington’s
obelisk, to
repair the cracks
suffered  from
last summer’s
freak earthquake.

I believe I detect
a tear in Abe’s
granite eye
saddened by the
corporate temblors
shaking the
foundations
of the city.

2.

The WWII Memorial
is America’s Parthenon
for a country's love
affair with the valor
and sacrifice of warfare.

WWII forms the
cornerstone of
understanding the
pathos of the
American Century.

During WWII
our greatest generation
rose as a nation to
defeat the menace of
global fascism and
indelibly mark the
power and virtue of
American democracy.

As Lincoln’s Army
saved federalism, FDR’s
Army kept the world safe
for democracy.

Both armies served
a nation that shared
the sacrifice and
burden of war to
preserve the grace of
a republican democracy.

Today federalism
crumbles as our
democracy withers.

The burden
of war is reserved
for a precious few
individuals while
its benefits
remain confined to
the corporate elite.

Our monuments
to war have become
commercial backdrops
for the hollow patriotism
of war profiteers.

We have mortgaged
our future to pay
for two criminal wars.

The spoils of
war flow into the
pockets of
corporate
shareholders
deeply invested
in the continuation
of pointless,
destructive
hostilities.

Our service
members who
selflessly served
their country come
home to a less free,
fear struck nation;
where economic
security and political
liberty erodes
each day while the
monied interests
continue to bless
the abundance
of freedom and riches
purchased with the
blood and sweat
of others.

America desperately
needs a new narrative.

The spirit of the
Greatest Generation
who sacrificed and met
the challenge of the 20th
Century must become
this generations spiritual
forebears.

The war on terror
neatly fits the
the corporate
pathos of
militarism,
surveillance
and the sacrifice
of civil liberties
to purchase
a daily measure
of fear and
economic
enslavement.

It must be rejected
by a people committed
to building secular
temples to pursue
peace, democracy,
economic empowerment,
civil liberties and tolerance
for all.

Yet this old city
and the democratic
temples it built
exulting a free people
anointed with the
grace of liberty
is being consumed
in a morass of
commercial
polyglot.

3.

During the
War of 1812
the British Army
burned the
Capitol Building
and the White House
to the ground.

Thank goodness
Dolly Madison saved
what she could.

The new marauders
are not subject to the
pull of nostalgia.  

They value nothing
save their
self enrichment.

They will spare nothing.

Our besieged Capitol
requires Lincoln’s troops
to be stationed along the
National Mall to defend
the republic.

The greatest peril
to our nation
is being directed
by well placed
Fifth Columnists.

From the safety
of underground bunkers,
in secure undisclosed
locations within the city’s
parameters, a well financed
confederacy employing  
K Street shenanigans
are busy selling off
the American Dream
one ear mark
at a time, one
huge corporate
welfare allotment
at a time.

The biggest prize
is looting the real
property of the people;
selling Utah,
auctioning off
the public schools,
water systems, post offices
and mineral rights
on the cheap
at an Uncle Sam
garage sale.  

The capitol is
indeed burning
again.

Looters are
running riot.

The flailing arms
of a dying empire
fire off cruise
missiles and drone
strikes; hitting the
target of habeas
corpus as it
shakes in its
final death rattle.
I make a pilgrimage
to the MLK Jr.
Monument.

Our cultural identity
is outsourced to
foreign contractors
paid to reinterpret
the American Dream
through the eyes
of a lowest bidder.

MLK has lost
his humanity.

He has been
reduced to a
a Chinese
superhuman
Mao like anime
busting loose from
a granite mountain while
geopolitical irony
compels him to watch
Tommy Jefferson
**** Sally Hemings
from across the tidal
basin for all eternity.  

MLK’s eyes fixed in
stern fascination,
forever enthralled
by the contradictions
of liberty and its
democratic excesses
of love in the willows
on golden pond.

Circling back to
Father Abraham’s
Monument,  I huddle
with a group of global
citizens listening
to an NPS Ranger
spinning four score
tales with the last full
measure of her devotion.

I look up into Abe’s
stone eyes as he
surveys platoons
of gray suited
Chinese Communist
envoys engaged
in Long Marches
through the National Mall;
dutifully encircling cabinet
buildings and recruiting
Tea Party congressmen
into their open party cells.

This confederacy
is ready to torch
the White House
again.

Congressmen and
the perfect patriots
from K Street slavishly
pull their paymasters
in gilded rickshaws to
golf outings at the Pentagon
and park at the preferred
spots reserved for
the luxury box holders
at Redskin Games.

They vow not to rest
until the house of the people
is fully mortgaged to the
People’s Republic of China’s
Sovereign Wealth Fund.

4.

A great
Son of Liberty like
Alan Greenspan
roundly rings
the bells of
free markets
as he inches
T Bill rates
forward a few
basis points
at a time; while
his dead mentor
Ayn Rand
lifts Paul Ryan
to her
Fountainhead teet.
He takes a long
draw as she
coos songs
from her primer
of Atlas Shrugged
Mother Goose tales
into his silky ears.

The construction
cranes swing
to the music
building new private
sector space with
the largess of
US taxpayers
money; or
more rightly
future generations
taxpayer debt.

Libertarians,
Tea Baggers, Blue Dogs
and GOP waterboys
eagerly light a
match to the
the crucifixes
bearing federal
social safety
net programs
to the delight
of NASDAQ
listed capitalists
on the come,
licking their chops
to land contracts
to administer
these programs
at a negotiated
cost plus
profit margin.

Citizens
dependent
on programs
are leery
shareholders
are ecstatic.

To be sure
our free
market rebels
don disguises
of red, white
and blue robes
but their objectives
fail to distinguish
their motives and
methods with
some of the finest
Klansman this
country has
ever produced.

5.

DC is a city
of joggers
and choppers.

Corporate
helicopters
wizz by the
Washington
Monument,
popping erections
for the erectors
inspecting the progress
of the cranes
commanding the
city skyline.

USMC drill team
out for a morning
run circles the Mall.

The commanding
cadence of the
DI keeps us
mindful of the
deepening
militarization of
our society.

A crowd  
rushes
to position
themselves,
genuflecting
to photograph
a platoon on
the move.

I try to consider
the defining
characteristics of
Washington DC.

DC is all surface.

It is full of walls
and mirrors.

Its primary hue
is obfuscation.

Open
communication
scripted from well
considered talking points
informs all dialog.

The city is thoroughly
enraptured in narcissism.

Thankfully, one can
always capture the
reflection of oneself in
the ubiquitous presence of
mirrors.  

Vanity imprisons
the city inhabitants.

Young joggers circle the
Mall and gerrymander
down every pathway
of the city.  

They are the clerks,
interns and staffers of
the judicial, executive
and legislative branches.

They are the children
of privilege.

They will never
alter their path.

You must cede the walk
to their entitlement
of a swift comportment
or risk injury of a
violent collision.

These young ones
portray a countenance  
of benevolent rulers.  

They seem to be learning
their trade craft well from
the senators and judges
whom they serve.

They appear confident
they know what's best
for the country and after
their one term of tireless
service to the republic
they look forward to
positions in the private
sector where they will
assist corporations
to extend their reach
into the pant pockets
worn by the body politic.

6.

Our nations mythic story
lies hidden deep in the
closed rooms of the
museums lining the
Mall.

I pause to consider
what a great nation
and its great people
once aspired to.

I spy the a
suspended
Space Shuttle
hanging in dry dock
at the air and
space museum.

Today America’s
astronauts hitch
rides on Russian
rockets.

America rents a
timeshare from
the European
space agency to
lift communication
satellites into orbit.

Across the Mall
I photograph
John Smithson’s
ashes in its columbarium.  

I fear it has become a
metaphor for America’s
future commitment
to scientific inquiry
and rational secular
thinking.

I am relieved to
discover a Smithsonian
exhibit that asks
“what does it mean
to be human?”

The Origins of Humans
exhibit carries a disclaimer
to satisfy creationists.

The exhibit timidly states
that science can coexist
with religious beliefs and
that the point of the exhibit is
not to inflame inflame religious
passions but to shed light on
scientific inquiry.

I imagine these exhibits
will inflame the passion of
the fundamentalist
American Taliban and
provide yet another
reason to dismantle
the Moloch of Federalism.

The pursuit of science
remains safe at the
Smithsonian for now.

7.

Near K Street at
McPherson Park
a posse of
well dressed
lobbyists, the
self anointed
uber patriots
doing the work
of the people
stroll through
the park
boasting a
healthy population
of bedraggled
homeless.

The homeless
occupy the benches
that have been
transformed into
pup tents.

Perhaps some of
the residents of this
mean estate were
made homeless by a
foreclosed mortgage.  

The K Street warriors
can be proud that their
work on behalf of the
banking industry has
forestalled financial market
reform.  

Through it exacerbates
the homeless problem it has
allowed these K Street titans to
profit from the distress of others.

Earlier in the day
I photographed
a homeless man
planted in front of
the Washington
Monument.

I wonder
if my political
voyeurism is
an exploitation of
this man’s condition?

I have more in common
then I probably wish to
admit with my K Street
antagonists.  

In another section
of the park the
remnants of a
distressed OWS
bivouac remain.

The legions of sunshine
patriots have melted away
as the interest of the
blogosphere has waned.

As the weather
improves Moveon.org
and democratic
party operatives
pitch tents in an
effort to resuscitate
the moribund
movement.

They hope
to coop any
remaining energy
to support their
stale deception,
a neoliberal vision
based solely on the
total capitulation
to the bankrupt
corporatocracy.

I heard someone say
a campaign lasts a
season; while a
movement for social
change takes decades.

If that metric proves
correct, and if the
powers don’t succeed
in compromising the
people’s movement
I’ll be three quarters
of a century old
before I see
justice flowing like
a river once again.

8.

I circle back to
the L’Enfant and
find myself
tramping amidst
the lost platoon
of Korean War
soldiers.

My feet drag
in the quagmire
of grass covering
the feet of this
ghostly troop.

My namesake
uncle was a
decorated
veteran of this
conflict and Im
sure I detect
his likeness
in one of the
statues.

The bleak call
of a distant train
sounds a revelry
and I imagine this
patrol springing
to life to answer
the call of their
beloved country
once again.

Yet they remain
inert.  

Stuck in a
place that the
nation finds
impossible to
leave.

The eyes of the
men stare into
an incomprehensible
fate.  

They see the swarms
of Red Army infantrymen
crossing the Yellow River
streaming toward
them in massive
human waves,
the tips of
sparkling bayonets
threatening to slash
the outmanned
contingent fighting
to bits.

They are the
first detachment
to bravely confront
the rising power
of China many
thousands of
miles away
from their homes.

America like
this lone company
is overwhelmed
and lost in the
confusion
that confronts
them.

Looking up
I perceive the
bewilderment
of my muddled image
reflected on the
marble walls
surrounding
the memorial.

I am a comrade-in-arms,
a fellow wanderer sojourning
with th

The disassemblage of an artichoke,
My favorite thistle.
It is a bud, waiting to bloom,
did you know?
I will never forget meeting artichokes
in the gardens of a friend's family home
in Normandy, growing widely and profusely
some blooming, some not.
I jumped around with glee
until I encountered the stinging nettle
not nearly as inviting as an artichoke.

I am a refugee from the City upon a Hill.

My homeland once a resounding light to the nations; has become a convulsing black hole, threatening to devour any semblance of civility.

My City, once a radiant promontory of enlightenment, its illumination of liberty’s searing torch revered, it’s practical striving for democratic wisdom shaping the long arc of the moral universe emulated by people of good will across the globe; now lies in state as a mordant corpse, serenaded by a funereal chorus of laughing griffins, a dead patriarch surrounded by the ruins of a once opulent now sacked city, a bygone home to the scattered disassemblage of a once noble people.

I recoil from the rancor of extreme partisanship, the gerrymandered apportionment of citizenship rights, the buoyant vindictiveness celebrated by small minded ignorance.

The blind allegiance to jingoistic nationalism, the adulation of Blueline authoritarianism, the fealty to imperial militarism and the dangerous trajectory of it’s awful consequence yet to come, enthralls me with dread.

Compelled patriotism enforced by threats of faux patriots, amoral ammosexuals, their small hands stroking quick triggers of long guns, genuflecting in mastabutory glee to the preeminence of 2nd Amendment atrocities, angling crosshairs of resentments to firmly fix a promise of ghoulish body counts, a rationalized apocalypse a captive people must suffer to underwrite profiteering gunrunners who blindly defile the constitutional tenets of life, liberty and happiness, the blood splattered keystones of our true exceptionalism.

Xenophobia and racialism, are stoked and celebrated by the City’s chief executive, his impish smile mouths Blood and Soil sloganeering, he solemnly salutes the Confederate flag while cheering torchlight processions of enraged White Nationalists marching to the drum of the Grand Republic’s midnight dirge along the once hallowed trail of Jeffersonian Democracy and a sacred place of secular enlightenment and higher learning. His gleeful decrees tweet the destruction of families and his police agents mouth holy scriptures to justify the imprisonment of children.  These vandals rhapsodically paint images of phantasmagoric nightmares trampling and mocking democratic ideals, resurrecting long settled conflicts, terrible tests a once great City rose to extinguish, now swelling numbers of craven citizens ardently embrace Klansmen, insurrectionists and ****’s as righteous brethren.

The madness of chauvinism and racial supremacy has fully metastasized within the body politic, polluting the mind, infecting the bloodline with a virulent strain of a white blood cell disease coursing through the veins of republican citizenship.

A City stolen from the Native inhabitants, ethnically cleansed and its former inhabitants remanded to the prisons of reservations, a City constructed on the backs of chattel slaves, erected on the graves of exploited wage laborers, provisioned by the ruthless denigration of the earth’s bounty, law and order mandated by criminalizing the marginalized, repressing the civil liberties of outliers and subjecting women to a perpetual status as the second *** underclass; has failed to repent and steadfastly refuses to make reparations for its sinful past has made the City uninhabitable.

The embrace of tolerance and diversity is the balm, the curate that can salve the oozing sores crippling the City. Nativist prejudice is a long protracted path that City citizen’s find impossible to exit. The malevolence that consumes the mind and moves the soul of a desperately spiteful people, who take delight and find it necessary to dehumanize and imprison alien races and creeds to maintain vapid notions of superiority, profane the ideals of a republican calling. They ruefully ignore the beacon of light warning of the dangerous shoals that lay ahead. The ideals of the great democratic experiment on course to be dashed on the jagged rocks of ignorance, fear, and anger. The doomed City has set a course that endangers its embargoed citizens. Travelling in steerage, a captive body, believing they are on a course for the rebirth of the City’s greatness are emboldened and chained by the delusions of their self destructive steadfast resentments.

My home City has become unknown to me.  I have become a stranger in this strange land. What was once beloved has become insufferable. What was once treasured has become burdensome. The familiar has become fully alien. A terrible avenging apparition haunts and mocks people of good will. My heart is disheveled. My spirit bruised. My body literally aches from the wounds exacted from the deconstruction of my beloved metropolis.

I stand stranded at the border of incivility. Bewildered I peer through a protective wall of concertina wire, eyeing the imprisoned haughty souls of fully enfranchised citizens, bellowing self righteous psalms, singing interminable lamentations of terminal ignorance.

Condemned by their belief in the salvation of violence and recrimination, secure in their faith that their moat of self righteousness shelters them from the gulags of perdition they eagerly proclaim for others, feeling recused from the bane of sinfulness by meager tithes, tumidity and scriptural specificity and the sweet delusional conviction they are the chosen tribe of God’s favor; their aspirations viscerally dashed in blizzards of metaphysical illusion strewn like meaningless confetti onto a passing parade of barbarians who have taken the City as its grandest prize.

Sadly I must withdraw from my beloved City. I retreat to a refuge where the barbarians dare not enter. Their ignorance and stasis weds them to a place far from my sanctuary of choice. May my sanctuary restoreth my soul!

I find refuge in the temples of jazz. I sing arias of lucent improvisation. The freedom of unbridled expression reinvigorates the mind, alighting the emanation of our better angels. The music calibrates my soul with the syncopated beat of an irrepressible life force, the humanity of my welling heart swells on the sonorous oxygen of a lyrical free spirit.

I take refuge in our vanishing mountain wilderness. The natural world offers a solace of solitude, a unrequited impression of scale and a transcendent communion immune from the trampling cacophony of gleeful vandals running rampant through the streets of the City. In winter the summits are capped in crowns of viginal snow, spring awakens a dormant flora, autumn leaves shout the chorus of a seasons glory and summer flowers bloom in multitudes of brilliant colors marking a startling contrast to the fifty shades of gray tattooed onto the City’s restive souls by the purveyors of power.

I find respite on the friendly banks of rivers and breeze swept ocean shores. The perfume wafting along a rivers streaming eddies or a briney snort gulped from the foam of a cresting wave invigorates the lungs, strengthens the heart and clears the mind. The flow of living water heals lifes wounded spirit. It quenches a thirst for justice and nourishes the hope of freedom for all incarcerated souls. The ceaseless roll of the ocean waves prove the enduring power and inevitability of liberty.

I find a good refuge in books. Here I discover a fleeting glimpse of our forgotten love of knowledge and pursuit of truth and rational thought. Enlightenment is the plot of every storyline.

I take refuge in art. I escape into the multiple dimensions of aesthetic beauty trouncing the twittering banality of fad, pornographic affectations and consumer fethishism. Glimpsing beauty while beauty is there to behold and the diligent practice of its creation is an answer to a higher calling.

I take refuge in my dog. Unconditional love and trusted friendship are values at peril in a transactional world; virtues nobily demonstrated and freely given by our canine and feline friends.

I take refuge in late night comedy. Working the midnight shift, whistling past the graveyard with a hearty laugh helps to while away the desperate hours. The rancid fruits of our labor leave a bitter taste in our mouths, humor is the bread of life that clears the palate and makes the terrible sufferable.

My lasting sanctuary is the stronghold of faith, forbearance and tolerance. I trust the long arc of justice will bend toward the righteous and offer a pathway of redemption for all desecrated souls.

I take refuge in the Blues. Let my lamentations turn to songs of joy and deliverance.

I take refuge in prayer. May my places of exile restore and heal my denigration. May God deliver us to a good destination. May our generational wanderings in the desert of desolation end in the discovery of a good place of habitation.

In the solitude of prayer may I experience catharsis, may my petitions find an open ear, may I achieve clarification, may my pious supplication be genuine , my conviction firm, a direction found, a decision made, a call to action clear.  May I become a healer of the breach.

May Your grace be sufficient for me.

I declare my exile over. I will return to my City. I will attempt to rekindle the extinguished flame of liberty to dispel the darkness enveloping my City.

Selah.

Mark Almond: The City

Puyallup
6/30/18
jbm