I burn the flag
that massacred
Wounded Knee.
I burn the actual
specific flag flown
by the U.S. Calvary
that crucified the Sioux
on Christmas 1890.
I burn the flag
that fiddles while
rain-forests burn.
I burn the flag
everyone stands & sings
“rockets’ red glare” to
just before a football game
while every second a
football-field of rain-forest
burns. I burn the flag
that dropped napalm
on children in Vietnam.
I burn the flag
that swapped guns for
cocaine with death squads
that raped & murdered
nuns in El Salvador.
I burn the flag that
propped up the Somozas
in Nicaragua all those
decades. I burn the flag
that burned Neruda’s library.
I burn any flag that
promotes flag fetishism
and pep-rally nationalism
that forestalls a global
alliance for peace
and ecological sanity.

- Jeff Poniewaz