The Chain & The Screens & The Fire
By Jake Phillips
— after Alexandrea Teague’s “’My Country, ‘Tis of Thee’ (arranged for Brazen Bull)”
Bellows and bolts and the king and the king’s rage
at the price of freedom the fire the face like fire hot-orange
on your screen first look at your phones the fire given
to humankind hot breath fogging hot and he bellows
at the man in chains as he has always done the least racist
person that you’ve ever encountered may the eagle peck
his liver the lives chained first look look the tweets may the eagle
peck the deplorables on this rock chained a chain a storm
of characters filthy language on fire and you don’t want
to live with them either the eagle feasts on freedom
on many sides on liver, regrowing feast your eyes feed your phone
for the king who has done more for African Americans Americans
create their own violence and the box was opened all 140
characters and their hashtags their own violence released
unchained into the world then they try to blame others the violence
on many sides the Titan the fire the hero of culture
a really dumb guy the liver always and his rock the disgusting, rat
and rodent infested mess always returns and the hope on the bottom
the hope the birth certificate is a fraud the faces
lit up with the fire we hold our hands out dangerous
for our country let’s take a closer look the chains tighten the liver
returns can you imagine the furor the blaze the pecking eternal
he watches tweets from Oval throne never discriminated
the violence a terrible thing the mud of mankind melting from the fire
Jake Phillips is a first-year poetry MFA candidate at the University of Massachusetts, Boston; a former teacher; and a former librarian. His writing has appeared in Z Poetry’s anthologies Massachusetts’ Best Emerging Poets and America’s Emerging Poets: Northeast Region. He currently works as a publishing assistant for Hanging Loose Press. Find him on Twitter @itsjustJp.
Photo credit: schizoform via a Creative Commons license.