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There was the amplified and echoing
“optimistic hatred of the actual”
that every flag waving
to make it so kept
waving to the joyous rhythm of
even after
in the docile chaos of a
confetti of balloons
tumbling out of darkness
high above the lights.
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Look at Us, the anthem,
Look at Us, the shield,
the sacrifice —
but look
at how unfillable
the cavern of the Great Hall is,
more vacant and silent
for the stage dismantled,
the massive absence
of the cheering and singing; look
at how the last of us,
our delegate
torch in hand
sleepwalks in patrol
patrolling nothing
like a soldier “in the
midst of doubt, in
the collapse of creeds”
who doesn’t know
the war has ended,
behind enemy lines
no longer there,
obedient to “a cause
he little understands,
in a campaign
of which he has
no notion, under
tactics of which
he doesn’t see the use”–
moving in darkness
from light to smaller light
along the catwalks
through the tunnels
over the swept floor
to the farthest exit sign.
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