ASHES #7, "The New Pledge of Allegiance" by Rex Butters

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THE NEW pledge OF allegiance Rex butters

COPYRIGHT © 2024 by REX BUTTERS

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Howling Dog Press, Publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles, studies, reviews, and the non-commercial brief usage of visual work via transmission through multi-media with acknowledgement and credit given to the author, artist, and publisher, citing the source as “ASHES #7: The New Pledge of Allegiance by Rex Butters.” For information and permission, contact Michael Annis online at Howling Dog Press: WritingDangerously@HowlingDogPress.com.

Illustrations on the title page & page 16 by David Bruce Wolfe. Illustration, page 5, by Michael Annis.

Layout & Design by Michael Annis

“American Nero” was first published in COST OF FREEDOM: The Anthology Of Peace & Activism [HDP, 2007]

The FETUS LOGO on the cover in the ASHES CHAPBOOK SERIES was created by Michael Annis

The back flyleaf is a facsimile of the printed back covers of the original ASHES chapbooks, numbers 1- 5.

HOWLING DOG PRESS

ASHES Chapbook No. 7 Spring 2024

MICHAEL ANNIS, FOUNDER & DIRECTOR Denver, Colorado

THE NEW PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

 

American Nero

American Nero

he strums guitar in San Diego monkey mugs for the once prestigious washington press corp laughing with a country star his month long vacation nearly over dragging their children those children alive citizen survivors in garbage Mississippi towns soggy kindling fire stations flooded buildings burn for lack of water sweltering citizens parched face down a young girl half under grimy water floats her pink hair clip still in her hair no ripples submerged

American Nero strums guitar in San Diego draws cheers and applause from an adoring audience at a naval base in Southern california

dark rank smelling house sticky Mississippi mud porch slick living room floor crumpled woman still holds snake fight stick black and white dress bodies rotting quickly in the heat rats feasting on your loved ones dead in the street

American Nero

strumming guitar during the Gulf Coast floods this time, not wearing phony ranch hand duds “If you’re someone who’s having to struggle between food and medicine, those days are over,” he says to Seniors in Southern california

children rest in ration boxes hospital patients stretchered on airport baggage claim floor nurses weep leaving dead patients faces the color of mud and brown water 4 mos. old 6 mos. old they died right here in america waiting for food their tattered dead in lawn chairs bodies in refrigerated trucks used to ship bananas sick poor black old and left behind ( 7 )

stroke victims in laundry baskets treated like an occupied enemy race, age, and bank book determined survivors as official excuses and transparent lies swarm like a thick cloud of blood sucking flies

American Nero in sunny San Diego strums his guitar eats cake in Arizona with John McCain while sewage soaked survivors cling to life in rising water atop cars

rescue efforts pulled back to focus on looters

Save the Stuff kill anyone moving it we can’t show the world we no longer value property

the self-righteous wind wing bellows “Shoot On Sight!” but the looting began long before the storm public funds shore up defense contractors’ bank accounts levees left in tatters

Nero-minded numbskull

King ofVacations ( 8 )

he flew over high above he looked out a window a prepared statement of concern then returns to the golf course their devastation and misery a fly by photo op prop

Bond, Biloxi, Maxie, Star, Thomasville, Gulfport, New Orleans, Mali, Somalia, and Sudan survivors

their names washed away all they will call you will be refugees

will they receive the 2-3 hundred thousand dollars given to each family relocating off Gaza paid by US taxes?

will the US govt.’s $75 million bribe offer refused by Iraqi Sunnis be chipped into the Gulf Relief Fund?

two days after Katrina hit the federal rescue leader hadn’t heard about the 15,000 desperate, dehydrated, hungry, angry, dying in the New Orleans Convention Center from Mobile, American Nero smiled, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”

( 9 )

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, THE WRETCHED REFUSE OFYOUR TEEMING SHORE. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, That I may feed them to my greedy death god,” American Nero sang and twanged, laughing.

Mississippi John Hurt rain your sweet finger pick tears on the People

Charlie Patton roar their frustration and pain

Memphis Minnie sing about when the levee breaks it’s 1927 again

i will no longer be complicit in genocide

humanitarian Aaron Bushnell

did incredible work for various mutual aid and unhoused coalitions spent every penny and second

serving his community living anarchist principles developed deep friendships with people living in the encampments

buying them blankets, sweaters and snacks gave his cat to his neighbor gave his savings to Palestinian children

should any survive

talented USAF IT for one of history’s most enthusiastically genocidal nations

engulfed in flames flesh sizzling preset camera recording ( 11 )

because 2 months earlier a different fiery extreme protest cancelled trivialized diminished erased suppressed

cynical Western society rigidly unable to comprehend sacrifice to a cause greater than oneself policeman gun drawn repeatedly yelling “Get on the ground” before the airman collapsed vividly demonstrating ironically embodying the mindset Bushnell protested

slumbering complicit people he chose to burn for thousands burnt without a choice

“it

is done to wake us up” said Thich Nach Hanh offering the body as a torch to dissipate the dark ( 12 )

“Free

Palestine” he screamed a voice of flame his words are fire remember his name he said “This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal”

13 )

the last taboo

peace is the final obscenity

peace is the last humiliation

peace is not on the table

peace receives no serious consideration

peace is not an option

peace is a waste of everyone’s time

peace is a refuge of the naive

peace doesn’t make the right people rich

peace must be heavily censored

peace won’t sell

peace obstructs greed

peace undermines fear as a weapon of social control

peace unemploys special forces

peace stinks up the room

peace misses the point

peace ruins the plot

peace won’t work because of someone else

peace threatens enforced economic and social disorder

peace gets low ratings

peace gets bad reviews

peace won’t prop up a dead currency

peace looks stupid in a uniform

peace needs a marketing plan

peace remains out of reach

peace could crash the internet

peace endangers capitalism

peace creates uncomfortable silences

peace redistributes wealth

peace exposes stupid sadistic bullies

peace lacks ambition

peace can’t loot the treasury ( 14 )

peace requires more courage than war

peace infuriates the already angry

peace didn’t make the survey

peace raises eyebrows

peace makes you check the time

peace won’t get corporate sponsorship

peace ends entitlement

peace requires your full attention

peace bores the gossip industry

peace can’t compete with cultural myth

peace can’t hitch a ride

peace can’t get a like

peace makes the wholesale slaughter of brown people seem so psychotic

peace can’t eradicate species

peace feels like it’s being ignored

peace asks the wrong questions

peace means mental illness in a militaristic culture

peace gets labeled a traitor

peace beheads barbarism and savagery

peace can’t get a fair hearing

peace lost control of the narrative

peace can’t get booked on a news show panel

peace suspends relations with obliterating idiocy

peace can’t be serious

peace never gets invited to peace conferences

peace won’t trade on Wall Street

peace can’t afford to bankroll Hollywood propaganda empires

peace can’t make itself heard over the ear shattering wargasms

peace won’t be born of bombs

peace taken off life support still breathes

peace is our only future ( 15 )

THE NEW PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

bend over and repeat after me

the elites educate you to stop thinking the elites want you to believe what their media tells you the elites want tv to be your reality

( 16 )

the elites want you to suspect everyone but them

the elites encourage unspeakable violence as the norm

the elites fully support toothless artistic expression the elites write every movie to revolve around who has the gun

the elites make music suck by draining our lives of sacred spontaneous sound

the elites want poetry to rhyme all the time

the elites listen to your phone calls after reading your texts

the elites spend billions recruiting, training, arming elite forces to protect them from your waking up

the elites hate women and children

the elites feed you genetically altered/nutritionally empty patented mutagenic food the elites make you work three jobs die young, burnt out, and broke too busy to read or react

the elites waste your limited resources for their profit

the elites will privatize your water after they fill it with toxic waste killing every swimming species

( 17 )

the elites exploit impotent acts of radicalism to pacify your heart and mind the elites commit crimes against peace the elites undermine/discredit/destroy hospitalize/imprison suicide/ruin

anyone glimpsing them the elites create and bait the races

keeping us distracted and divided the elites deploy tax paid public servant police force as bullying over armed

mad dog occupying army answerable to no one the elites bake you with radiation laughing from the comfort of their lead-lined bunkers the elites control elections giving candidates and issues preferential media exposure the elites keep slavery alive behind bars in for profit prisons the elites look you in the eye take your children molest them in airports just to see you obey the elites destroy community and culture by raising rents ( 18 )

the elites want you to shut up and stay home before a flickering light the elites use their religions to kill your spirit the elites feed your children into a physical and psychological invasion force meat grinder to protect oil company and defense contractor profits the elites throw out your votes the elites want the truth marginalized the elites want the truth sanitized the elites want the truth institutionalized the elites depend on you not believing me

Since 1976, longtime SoCal resident REX BUTTERS has published journalistic writings on sites and in magazines including BAM, Rapport, Folk Works, the LA Free Press, the Free Venice Beachhead, and 242 pieces for All About Jazz. His poetry has appeared for over 45 years in such diverse journals as the True Wheel, Caffeine, Brain Vomit, the Night Forest Cell of Radical Poets, interbang, sic Vice and Verse, The Journal of Interdimensional Poetry, Yogi Times, Bad Haircut Quarterly, the Mas Tequila Review, and the Muse International Journal of poetry. His anthology credits include Cost of Freedom, A Beautiful Resistance, Extreme, The Revolutionary Poets Brigade, the San Diego Poetry Annual 2015 & 2017, #SheDoes, and Sparring With Beatnik Ghosts. ( 21 )

the last taboo

peace is the final obscenity

peace is the last humiliation

peace is not on the table

peace receives no serious consideration ...

HOWLING DOG PRESS Ashes Chapbook No. 7 Spring 2024

the last taboo

peace is the final obscenity peace is the last humiliation peace is not on the table peace receives no serious consideration …

~ Rex Butters

HOWLING DOG PRESS Ashes Chapbook No. 7 Spring 2024