Dirge 10
by John Kendall Hawkins
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This poem originally appeared in Jerry Jazz Musician on 06/21/24.
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In the latest deluge of my tears,
stuck in Five Eyes,
amidst the Internet of Things and their keepers,
emerging aliens from the outer colonizing inner space,
rightwing parasitic reactionaries, rising in miasma,
I slap at African drums to know again
the heartbeat I forgot.
A squeezebox brings a slow gypsy air
and a violin rasps, horse hair wisp-ers,
like the last suspirations of a soul leaving its body.
I see the frozen tundra of the world
in thaw, releasing the evil we left behind,
in darker ages, before magna carta,
newly emerging with rusty cackles
and co*k-of-the-walk smirks
angels of the Anglosphere
pure Mighty Whitey
that have you believing
that the exiled Cain
has returned.
.
What am I supposed to do?
It's too late for lamentations
or gnashing of teeth
or pretending I have the energy
of Billy Cobham at work.
I'm beaten down.
.
My tin kazoo
plays taps
