Poems - 8. American Vaudeville

Infernal muttering follows me
on linoleum streets--
I hear them, and I recall
words of my mother, the fish:

wild-eyed fury with fins.
Such sounds--screech, craw, and song--
tend to bark like locusts,
and my trees are stripped,

poor things, slender in the wind. I refuse
to be content or satisfied, silent or appeased,
until the obelisk is crushed
on the sandy white crest,

and proud lady liberty
of green, fantastic flames
at last regains her hairy chest.
Because my fathers and forefathers

have launched, burned, lynched,
stank, and mobbed--
except my father, the flagship down--
I demand, without compromise,

the liberty of a denuded race,
and the image of a dressing gown,
left flapping in the wind.