Songs of my Father from the ’60s to ’80s
Commie in a crate
in a crate in a crate
Commie in a crate
of Carling Black Label
birch hand-carved
peacekeeper clubs
Vacation Bible School
macaroni Jesus
not a survivalist
not a supremacist
blackout curtained
towel-stuffed doorjamb
subterranean
neighborhood meetings
bearbaiting Ruskies
Leninists/Stalinists/
Khrushchev/Brezhnev/
Cherenkov /Gorbachev
calling Youth for Christ
kill Soviets kill
pussycat/tomcat faster, faster
nyet to re-education
gulag archipelago
detente perestroika
& mine HUAC Daddy—please
Mr. Wallace-Nixon-Reagan
tear down your wall
tear down your wall.
Year IX
What a queer switch—the triangle not pink
but as black as his hair after a box of L’Oréal # 2
Shakespeare’s “to thine own blah blah blah”
is red; can’t tell if cloisonné or enamel
Plus he wouldn’t know Polonius even if Polonius popped
out of an arras & plunged a knife into his heart
for a much needed comic twist.
He shares: cliché cliché slogan cliché
unexpected aphorism
back to cliché (wait for applause)
wrap it up: slogan cliché
one flip—thumb under index finger—there’s the prayer
& suddenly he’s god again
doing standup comedy
complete w/ flop sweat
Commie in a crate
in a crate in a crate
Commie in a crate
of Carling Black Label
birch hand-carved
peacekeeper clubs
Vacation Bible School
macaroni Jesus
not a survivalist
not a supremacist
blackout curtained
towel-stuffed doorjamb
subterranean
neighborhood meetings
bearbaiting Ruskies
Leninists/Stalinists/
Khrushchev/Brezhnev/
Cherenkov /Gorbachev
calling Youth for Christ
kill Soviets kill
pussycat/tomcat faster, faster
nyet to re-education
gulag archipelago
detente perestroika
& mine HUAC Daddy—please
Mr. Wallace-Nixon-Reagan
tear down your wall
tear down your wall.
Year IX
What a queer switch—the triangle not pink
but as black as his hair after a box of L’Oréal # 2
Shakespeare’s “to thine own blah blah blah”
is red; can’t tell if cloisonné or enamel
Plus he wouldn’t know Polonius even if Polonius popped
out of an arras & plunged a knife into his heart
for a much needed comic twist.
He shares: cliché cliché slogan cliché
unexpected aphorism
back to cliché (wait for applause)
wrap it up: slogan cliché
one flip—thumb under index finger—there’s the prayer
& suddenly he’s god again
doing standup comedy
complete w/ flop sweat
