last time I looked

vikings on yamahas weren't on

the menu and

human skulls in

with the frozen vegetables.

last time I looked

the only person left

waving a confederate flag

was six feet under.

last time I looked

somebody took the klan out

with the trash

butchers didn't trade

brueghels for napalm and

debutantes hid their

swastika lipstick.

last time I looked

truth didn't fly standby

high priced hemorrhoids

didn't run for office or practice

sodomy in

pentecostal salads.

how did it happen that ghosts drive

pick up trucks

and the damned line our closets

where once upon a time

there was such a thing as youth now

highway patrol pulls beauty

in handcuffs from

stolen vehicles while innocence

is raped in the name of

ash-

craft with

patriot axe.

last time I looked

clean air wasn't a luxury

school children were playing

with coloring books not

switchblades. who gypped us

who tripped us where might

becomes right cowboys stick to

their saddles forcing mother courage to

her knees. who gypped us

whose pompous cemeteries

promise roses

whose insider

trading in

white house where elected pimps preach

abstinence whores of

decency give suck to

virtuous crimes where giants too

are forced to surrender little men fly

big planes into rows of

coffins nailed shut in

the name of

homeland security.

whose target practice this

that yields only terror

where the price of freedom

is greater than oil.

© 2004 - Jayne Lyn Stahl