Friday, October 15, 2010

LADY LIBERTY

(a vehicle for quoting Grover Cleveland & Steve Ignorant in the same stanza)

Crusty punk girl, your wan skin
would possibly be unbecoming were it not
so damned reminiscent of Lady Liberty’s oxidized glow.
The thick gelatin which bonds your meticulously
coiffed spikes, your seven continents rifted and drifted
from your shaved Pangaea, reflects stage lights
like a diadem of freedom.
A raised fist: your torch, ignited
with a fiery frenzy at the first wailing chord.

You are the poor, the tired, a member
of the huddled masses in studded black
adorned with Discharge patches and perfectly
stenciled Crass logos, stomping the terra,
flailing extremities with abandon, streams
of light projecting through your seven seas which
shall pierce the darkness of ignorance and man’s oppression,
your tattered t-shirt a reminder to subway patrons to
                Fight War,
                      Not Wars.