LAMENT FOR YESTERDAY

                              I’m an old time smugglin’ man and I know just what to do
                              I sell guns to the Arabs
                              I sell dynamite to the Jews
                                        – Tim Hardin (“Smugglin’ Man”) Verve 1966

Sometimes, the old songs ring true—
clever genius festering a tune
we can sing to our children
before we send them off to war.

Business explodes in the cities
of strangers, in jungles and deserts
we must liberate before we extract
our pound of flesh for the fallen—

and here at home, Dearly Beloved,
just outside the door, down the street
around the corner of the future,
nothing is secure anymore—

not the dollar, not the truth.
I want my old job back: weeding
flowerbeds for two-bits an hour—
knees deep into the rich damp dirt.