Family Barbecue

I fear the fourth, its fiery display of pseudo-liberty for on this day we pray for sun, and light the grill, while we’re afraid to fly a flag that no longer fits the bill because its stripes and stars are mostly for the right. And those of us who love this land but maybe don’t have God smack central in our hand, feel we can’t fly red or white and definitely not blue. “Perhaps this country’s not for you,’ we hear in whispers from the other side, the part that’s polarized and hard inside who look at us with anger and suspicion.

 It’s time to put the fish on, and a Brat or two, is there hope a beer might just unite me and you? But I won't begin to touch the thoughts that are running through your head that your guy’s the second coming. For I think I know for certain what’s behind the golden shower curtain. What’s happening to our country isn’t pretty, and it’s a pity because once upon a time our fathers looked upon this land and had a plan. It was just a pilot program and perhaps we’re still in beta, but we made it greater and goddam, it was bold and it was grand.

Of course you know who I will vote for, he’s an old malarkey joker and as the saying goes, he’s getting long in the tooth but at least I hope he’ll tell the truth and that he isn’t ruthless. It’s a calamity of choices, that we the people have lost our voices, and our rage has been reduced to two men of a certain age. Please, have a beer and another, it’s true you and I grew up as brothers, but we can only talk about the weather—not the climate—while we fret about the failing mind of one man and the honor of the other. We may share our genes, have common blood, but we live across a chasm, across the lengthiest of aisles, across an ocean of our thoughts, and of mutual denial. At this picnic I admit that I’m afraid to tell you how I tick and what I’ve done, ‘cause as I hear the fireworks exploding one by one, I’m reminded as always, that you’re carrying at least one loaded gun.