our national times past in poetry

they love their football so much
because it is the last plantation
they have left for the cheering
Sunday afternoon after bowing
to their lily-white Jesus Christs
the Sunday morning beforehand

basketball, they firmly feel
was taken over by black stars
baseball, by damned hispanics
hockey, well, it is white enough
but it’s all canadian socialists
east european communists
beer that isn’t just water
french fleur-de-lis and
cheese fries ruined by
gravy into poutine

football, well, football
they let black men play
make them play positions
that’ll grind down spines
that concuss into stupor
that’ll dig early graves

football, well, football
when the black men excel
they force them to shrink
reject their sub-cultures
smiles step and fetch it
head down shuck and jive
or else a br’er bear tarred
as the glory-whore thug
addicted to street-drug
waiting for the police
to bust them for
something

still, it is a business
pragmatic money-men up in
their champagne luxury boxes
sons of inheritance and theft
looking to dog-pile even more
money money money money money
so they shave down the rituals
that cut away at bottom lines

in baseball, they still
down in Atlanta celebrate
their successes with that
racist goddamned war-chant
clinging to dumb tradition
afraid of losing tee-shirt
sales from the old guard

football, well, football
they follow the cash-money
they know how many whites
will in passing claim to be
one sixty-fourth Cherokee
at the college admissions
so they shuffled that out
of their Washington scam
the money’s in hating on
the blacks and hispanics
the women and the gays
the Muslims especially
so they trot out their
military flyover salute
they trot out underpaid
cheerleaders in hot-pants
football wants to be white
but never at the expense
of a little extra green

baseball will limp along
trying to shuffle out the
most talented white players
with all the charisma of
a damp Subway foot-long
Mike Trout for God’s sake
instead of their future
but football is America
doesn’t worship the past
so much as monetize it
so much as weaponize it
spread the hate thickly
but follow that cash-money
the first and the foremost
one nation under white God
with bread for the inheritors
and circuses for us all

Last updated October 31, 2021