6 HAIKU ABOUT 4 JULY

by Jeffrey Bryant

The signing of the Declaration of Independence, depicted here in a lithograph published by Nathaniel Currier. Photograph: Corbis/Hulton via The Guardian.

Fifty-six wigged men

Conceived the United States

On land that they stole.

 

Fifty-six wigged men

Complained about tyranny

After whipping slaves.

 

Fifty-six wigged men

Scribbled out their grievances

Without irony.

 

Fifty-six wigged men

Used the word equal without

Having looked it up.

 

Fifty-six wigged men

Lived liberty in pursuit

Of more native land.

 

Fifty-six wigged men

Need no pyrotechnics now

Down where they reside.

Jeffrey Bryant lives in Los Angeles.  He has been published in the L.A. Weekly, Los Angeles Times, Poetic Diversity Literary Journal and in the anthologies The Coiled Serpent from Tia Chucha/Northwestern University Press, the 2020 Altadena Literary Review from Shabda Press, and Shadowplay from the University of Arkansas.

A PERILOUS YEAR

by Tom Bauer

What fireworks are good enough on any
nation’s holiday? What illumination
is light enough? The light of sweet relief
is the light most creatures seem to love the best.
Where do we find it? Shooting in the streets
and yelling for our rights? Can we ever,
can anyone find peace in war and hate?
How can we feel our best? Ignore the worst?
Paint flowers in the mind? Sell hopes and smiles?
Bring on delightful lies and praise our kind?
It happens, and we never even knew
a flash of light could take it all away.
The long night’s fireworks scream at us all.
We cannot do this anymore. No more.


Tom Bauer's an old coot who lives in Montreal and plays a lot of board games.

7.4.22

by Don Brunnquell

Terrified paradegoers fled the Highland Park, Ill., Fourth of July event after shots were fired Monday. At least six people were dead, more than 40 people were hospitalized and a gunman was at large Monday afternoon after shooting Fourth of July paradegoers from a roof in this Chicago suburb, authorities said. (Photo: Lynn Sweet/AP via The Washington Post, July 4, 2022)

            In the dark times

            Will there be singing?

            Yes, there will be singing.

            About the dark times.

—Bertolt Brecht, “Motto”

 

Oh, say can you see, on this day

we celebrate what we used to call

one nation, with liberty and justice

for all, from every mountainside

let us sing all the songs our country

has earned, not only O beautiful

for spacious skies, but the mourning

dirge for today’s dead in Chicago parading

beside us with the children of Uvalde

and the spirit of George Floyd, not only

“Columbia the Gem of the Ocean”

but Woody’s “I Ain’t  Got No Home,”

and with fitting irony This land is your

land, this land is my land, recalling

whose land this really was, every verse

written on the mounds of the old bones.

Perhaps sing “You’re a Grand Old Flag”

not for the flag worship of the title,

but the lines, forever in peace

may you wave, and never a boast

or brag, sing “We Shall Overcome,”

but also the source of its tune,

“No More Auction Block For Me.”

All the songs need to be sung,

then return to “America the Beautiful,”

the closing lines of the second verse,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law. 

Don Brunnquell is a poet working in Saint Paul, MN after careers in pediatric psychology and bioethics.  He is one of the coordinators of the Midstream Poetry Series in the Twin Cities.