Two poems by Bruce McRae

Hello America

I see your smokey grey flanks.
I see you blowing on your fingernails.
I see you selling dishwashers.

I’m not kidding, from here
I can count many more than fifty stars.
I can hear your shot glasses tinkling.
I can envy your body-armour.

Ah come on you big lug,
show us more zany dancesteps,
more of your downhome recipes,
your cattle-prods and urban glitter.

And there’s a phone always ringing.
Why don’t you answer it?
Why not a splash of oil on gold?
How about a silicon driveway?

I can smell buffalo cooking.
I appreciate your woody bacon.
I can feel your money in the dark.
America, lend me a sawbuck.
America, we fit like old sneakers.
I’m the soup to your sandwich,
the gun to your drawer.
You’re my all-night pawnbroker.
My 24/7 candy store.
I like your jazzy slacks
and the way you launch rockets.
I dig your lingo gringo.
You have smooth haunches,
tractors, skyscrapers.
That’s some battleship you have there.
It’s sexy. It’s prim and it’s proper.

And I love what you’ve done to the night.
From here I can see your lights winking,
a right little box of treasures.
Your jets are staining the sky.
It’s like a million toilets flushing,
a million lasers coming on,
a millions ads for cereal.

Why hell, you invented Hollywood.
You say things like golly-gosh
and then send in the Marines.
Hey mac, hey bub, hey buddy.
Let’s be bestest pals.
Let’s just drive somewhere.
Let’s take a spin for the hang of it.
Let’s re-invent hitch-hiking.

Or I can watch cartoons
and listen to the blues.
I can drink your coffee, with plenty of sugar.
I enter into your honky-tonks.
I’m choking down your beer.
I go into a roadside inn
where I’m served double portions.
I’ve been hit by a baseball,
or was it a satellite?

Oh, and America, just by the way;
I see you’re electing presidents.
I hear your television,
it’s on all the time.
I hear the rabbi, priest and minister –
you’ve got God on your side, on your money.
You’ve been to the moon.
You have billionaires and soup kitchens.
You’re investing wildly,
buying low and selling high.

America, you’re reaping the whirlwind.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

At The Appointed Hour

I was just talking to God.
He was sitting on his helmet.
He was pissing into the rosebushes.
Every other word was a world destroyed.
He mentioned he was fed up in Heaven
and longed to go it alone,
start a business repairing furnaces,
invest in race horses,
breed showdogs on the side;
he said it was quite lucrative,
that the market was wide open.

No, you just missed him, a god’s god,
about yay-high, blue eyes,
icy fire where his hair ought to be.
We’re playing cribbage next Friday.
We’re going to a strip club,
and probably a few drinks after.

And he knows you, he said.
He’s well aware of your little ‘problem’,
would really like to help you out,
but he’s taken a pledge;
didn’t elaborate much though.
And he’s chubbier than you’d imagine.
Too many cupcakes, he confessed,
a bit sheepish about it too.

He was just in the neighbourhood
and thought he’d drop by.
At least that’s what he told me.
And I can’t imagine he’d lie about it,
not something petty like that.
I can’t imagine he’s even capable
of lying; or if he was
that he would or he did.


Author bio:

Originally from Niagara Falls Ontario, Pushcart-nominee Bruce McRae is a musician who has spent much of his life in London and British Columbia. He has been published in hundreds of periodicals and anthologies. His first book, ‘The So-Called Sonnets’ is available from the Silenced Press website or via Amazon books. To hear his music and view more poems visit his website: www.bpmcrae.com.