After it became obvious that the strange rain would never stop
And after it became obvious that the President’s general was doing everything in his power
And after it became obvious that the President’s general staff was still in contact with the President deep in the heart of Georgia while deep in the heart of South America the President’s left-hand man was proving that all the world loves an American
And after it became obvious that the strange rain would never stop and that Old Soldiers never drown and that roses in the rain had forgotten the word for bloom and that perverted pollen blown on sunless seas was eaten by irradiated fish who spawned up cloudleaf streams and fell on our dinnerplates
And after it became obvious that the President was doing everything in his power to make the world safe for nationalism his brilliant military mind never realized that nationalism itself was the idiotic superstition which would blow up the world
And after it became obvious that the President nevertheless still carried no matter where he went in the strange rain the little telegraph key which like a canopener could be used instantly to open but not to close the hot box of final war if not to waylay any stray asinine second lieutenant pressing any strange button anywhere far away over an arctic ocean thus illuminating the world once and for all
And after it became obvious that the law of gravity was still in effect and that what blows up must come down on everyone including white citizens
And after it became obvious that the Voice of America was really the Deaf Ear of America and that the President was unable to hear the underprivileged natives of the world shouting No Contamination Without Representation in the strange rain from which there was no escape – except Peace
And after it became obvious that the word Truth had only a comic significance to the Atomic Energy Commission while the President danced madly to mad Admiral Straus waltzes wearing special atomic earplugs which prevented him from hearing Albert Schweitzer and nine thousand two hundred and thirty-five other scientists telling him about spastic generations and blind boneless babies in the strange rain from which there was no escape – except Peace
And after it became obvious that the President was doing everything in his power to get through the next four years without eating any of the crates of irradiated vegetables wellwishers had sent him from all over and which were filling in the corridors and antechambers and bedchambers and chamberpots in the not-so-White House not to mention all the other various Golf Houses scattered thruout the land of prosperity
And after it became obvious that the Great Soldier had become the Great Conciliator who had become the Great Compromiser who had become the Great Fence Sitter who actually had heard of the Supreme Court's decision to desegregate the land of the free and had not only heard of it but had actually
read it
And after it became obvious that the President had gone to Gettysburg fourscore and seven years ago and had given his Gettysburg Address to the postman and so dedicated himself to the unfinished task
Then it was that the natives of the Republic began assembling in the driving rain from which there was no escape – except Peace
And then it was that no invitations had to be sent out for the great testimonial dinner except to politicians whose respected names would lend weight to the project but who did not come anyway suspecting the whole thing was a plot to save the world from the clean bomb from which there was no escape - except Peace
And women who still needed despair to look truly tragic came looking very beautiful and very tragic indeed since there was despair to spare
And some men also despaired and sat down in Bohemia and were too busy to come
But other men came whose only political action during the past twenty years had been to flush a protesting toilet and run
And babies came in their carriages carrying irradiated dolls and holding onto crazy strings of illuminated weather balloons filled with Nagasaki air
And those who had not left their TV sets long enough to notice the weather in seven years now came swimming through the rain holding their testimonials
And those came who had never marched in sports car protest parades and those who had never been arrested for sailing a protesting Golden Rule in unpacific oceans
And Noah came in his own Ark looking surprisingly like an outraged Jesus Christ and cruised about flying his pinion and picking up two of each beast that wanted to be preserved in the strange rain which was raining real cats and dogs and from which there was no escape – except Peace
And peddlers came in lead jockstraps selling hotdogs and rubber American flags and waving petitions proclaiming it Unamerican to play golf on the same holy days that clean bombs were set off on time
And finally after everyone who was anyone and after everyone who was no one had arrived and after every soul was seated and waiting for the symbolic mushroom soup to be served and for the keynote speeches to begin
The President himself came in
Took one look around and said
We Resign
(Lawrence Ferlinghetti)
No comments:
Post a Comment