Scoundrel Time

Anyone will sound the fool
in the story
of how he was

scammed by lilies,
by summers. Very common,
they’ll tell you,

in the performance
of good manners
and digestion

the world over. And how
would you like being
robbed of your name,

only to have it
sold to an era?
If a thing called “Pacific”

can be embraced
by a “Ring of Fire,”
if we can be thanked

for being honest,
no wonder we’d author
a system to make us

a name for nothing
more than our resistance
to it, a system to prevent

contact with children
of the system
we’ve forced them into.

Fly a flag
to tell the world
the king for whom your house

sails: proud
sponsor, poor
eater, loan

word, loan.
Whose tradition
is this? Get a stranger

to take a picture,
lose everything
to a higher resolution.

Con to the mark:
Maybe you write
a poem about this?

Yes, that’s what
we’ve been doing
this whole time.

 

_____

Check out the other poems in our “…knave, beggar, coward…” Goodbye! series!

https://scoundreltime.com/knave-beggar-coward-goodbye-curses/

https://scoundreltime.com/knave-beggar-coward-goodbye-two-poems-by-philip-fried/

https://scoundreltime.com/knave-beggar-coward-goodbye-the-day-the-dead-king-spoke-the-bomb/

_____

 

 

 

Image By: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/tales-from-the-boghouse