American Atlantis

Plato saw forward,
wrote back words
of the Isle of Wars,

its jazz lighthouses shining
beneath the blacks & blues
of water blessed by mexico,

property is saved from human surplus values
by bulldogs with buckshot and shooting stars,
we are the drifting wood from their war chests
smelling of factory closures and charities soup
first world multiplied by natures twisting third,

tanks not boats uniforms not blankets
bullets for breakfast & lunch & supper,

the old Orleans moon sets on venice
it's jazzed beams splashing all earths
places of terror & tortures, swing out
the life boat, pass out the day's ration,

we are all in the same hope
lest you forget & rock us out
we are all overboard of love,

even now poets tie themselves
good and tight to the main sails
even now I can hear their sirens,
the Isle's of War calling sweetly
for new hurricanes of technology
to sweep the poor from the earth.


John G.Hall(C)2005