Golf courses and interstates

complacency at alarming rates

among the primrose and wisteria

a pest appears.

 

Chrome and pastel

political poker with a tell

among the wages of prosperity

a committee spreading fear.

 

Rocket ship to missile

four-iron in the thistle

keep your eye on the ball

or the alliance might fall.

 

For all that’s right

in the atomic age

we’ve muddied the way

buried the rage

in the spy speak of

the modern sage

that knows his place but

not for whom he plays.

 

Like Sputnik falling from the sky

espionage and Catcher in the Rye

American dreams will save the day

divert the eye

enhance the array

set the mind a bit astray and

take the sting from

the prices we pay.

 

Unmoved are they as the darkness gathers

when standard of living is all that matters.

 

-Danny Grosso

An agent orange in

a yellow war

draws a curtain but

no fire which is

saved for the poor

G.I. whose sufferings

are borne of

the vilest lie of

evil most mundane of

briefcase C.Y.A. filed

in a safe

in a safe room

in a safe city

half a world away

from the fighting.

 

Mac tied himself in

knots trying to

justify a plan with

unexpected results and

a government left to

painting truthful reportage

as traitorous

that old misdirection

once devastating now

landing with the thud of

suddenly unexplodeable

ordnance.

 

Behind the curtain

searching for an itch that

cannot be found the

arms flail and twist

entwining mind and limb.

 

Once the rightest.

Once the brightest.

 

-Danny Grosso