When We Raise Our True Flag

There will come a day
(and it won’t be long now)
when the mandible-mouthed liars cease their death song,
and ivy grows over the bunkers of the Bank Boys,
and the cannons all sprout mushrooms,
and fireflies fill the air once more.

When that day comes,
we will lower the flag of the marching machine
(once used as wrapping paper for dead teenagers with rifles,
once hung over buildings full of men with red eyes,
once emblazoned upon flying robots that rained fire),
and we will raise our true flag at long last.

It will be woven from the prayers of our grandmothers
who will never see it raised but knew one day it would be.
It will be dyed in the blood of the media martyrs
who stared the Bastards in the eye and sang life songs.
It will have a traditional image of Michael the Archangel,
except instead of him stepping on the Devil
they are laughing together over a drink at the pub
while a man with a pipe looks on and smiles.
It will be based on a drawing made in crayon long ago
by a chain-smoking dryad who lurks in your brain pan.

We will all salute it in our own unique way:
with fart jokes and whale songs,
with unearthly ululations,
with runed glossolalia,
with lightning from our fingertips,
with air guitar karate,
with lava dance lovemaking,
with a single tear from someone who still misses you,
with an uplifting of the heart toward the sky.

And then we’ll all curl up together
and we’ll sleep unafraid
for the very first time,
and we will dream of the ones
who helped walk us home.

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