Classic Poem

We see here drawn up before us now the long rows.

there the stone.
the bronze-bound sea-borne mercenaries of old time there.
there the grand army of the republic aligned & all dead now.
& here our own.
us.

a band of brothers of all things mercy me.

on the tilted green garrison caps see the gold & blood-red piping repeat the cocked rat-tat tracks of tracers.
kilts & girls' skirts get lifted ruffled & flourished you see by the same wide wind of seeds that prolongs the irregular florid flags.

in the hot air of sousaphonic music as grand & dead as their state Latin the mailed mottoes brag maestoso as though nothing had ever happened.
empire of paralysis.
motley tubas moo above spit-valves' leakages.

the much-thumbed medals bounce a bit as the leader our director administers delivers by downbeat of dumbbell baton the wounding coup.
go.
monkey's tail around flagpole the national emblem.
don't tread on snake me.

& snares' split hiss & so now left-footed starts the bugle-horned monkey drum major's boot.