| Hunkered down and white-eyed
in the State's fantastic bunker:
the Cabinet, ice cubes rattling
in their whiskey. Battle-map shifts
like a Rubix. They watch it twist,
follow the color-coded icons. They breathe when some persist,
gasp when some are gone. Witness the war map erase--think about their grandkids.
Throned on his monolith,
smoking a carcinogen: the General.
Backlit with halogen like a dark shape
in the snow (he blows out smoke
the shape of soft-lead rounds
that mushroom when they maim.)
His features do not change.
"Have another drink," he urges,
"get it while it bites. Just imagine
what the cost will be for liquor
when this fight is over!"
No one says a word.
Just the clinking of his chest,
a mobile made of 50 medals
putting all his men to rest.
"You've got me to thank. You're shielded from the weather
sitting in a leather chair with a built-in ash tray.
You're in a chartreuse tux,
and nothing can scuff it up
because you are the Lionheads,
oh you are the Lionheads! No foes, no match. That's life after the smash." Sewers, the barracks of homeless droves, empty out in staggering rows. They wield makeshift maces: rotten oranges shot with cloves. They topple cars, torch the blocks. Their stone-age mortars rain rocks on the walls. Store front windows come crashing down like hard waterfalls. "Gentlemen, don't you doubt a thing." In competition with the sirens, his voice is getting rough; He pulls his men up by the scruff. "I just knew this day would come. It saw the scum where we were blind--I'm sure, in time, our tank will rid us of all the traitors! It may be slow in swamps, its tracks may slip on wet grass, and in the desert it may stop when its engine's too hot, but I assure you, from now on: We win the wars whether we like it or not." Question marks pinch every nerve in the room. The Rubix map is bland, just a green bleep inching, merciless, across the land towards a handful of Lionhead icons. (But-- aren't we the Lionheads?) ("No foes, no match. That's life after the smash.") |