-after amiri baraka
looking backwards across backwards dirt-tracks,
i would swear that somebody
wants to blow up vermont:
half-eaten trailers sunburnt by rust,
desperate old pickups festering with dust,
fallow farmfields overwhelmed with must.
somebody wants to blow up vermont,
i would swear to it.
past the neat village greens pimping organic farm stands,
behind the genteel country stores blaring cheddar cheese,
on the other side of the tracks from refurbished b and b’s
you’ll find the vacant lots perpetrating legions of weeds,
the carcasses of factories breeding crackpipes and disease,
the highly flammable housing projects that have no views of trees.
somebody wants to blow up vermont
for three hundred years
they have only partially succeeded
by lunging federal policy grenades
while we all await
the nuclear holocaust from ancient yankee.
somebody already blew up the abenaki
with a white-sheeted ethan allen fantasy
of racial caste disease
as if the abenaki
were never here
as if the white man
was the first man here
as if there is nothing queer
about forced displacement and segregation
while the abenaki still wait for federal recognition
the liquor stores are in great condition.
somebody wants to blow up vermont
even though
it was the first state
to ban slavery
and stop selling black bodies
to make sugar bags and cotton bales
the first state
to craft a constitution
that meant something for regular people
the first state
to give legal tender to same-sex civil unions
but how could it go on like this
proclaiming popular evolution
albeit with a second rate solution-
because
a better government is still government
and somebody wants to blow up vermont
detonate all its covered bridges, rock walls
and uncovered compost piles.
somebody wants to blow up this state
from exit one
to the canadian border.
somebody wants to burn up its vast forests
poison its pristine lakes and streams
somebody wants to demolish
its democratic town hall meetings
topple its liberal church steeples
somebody wants to blow up vermont
for setting a bad example.
there are more people in orange county
than in vermont
yet somebody wants to blow them all up
perhaps make an extension of new hampshire
where you can work unfree to craft license plates
that say “live free or die”
a state where nobody is dying to pay taxes.
somebody wants to blow up vermont
for setting a bad example
somebody wants to machine-gun
every one of its naked hippies,
hardscrabble dairy farmers,
and independent bookstore owners.
somebody wants to stab
every one of its migrant berry pickers,
pimple-faced pizza makers,
and jovial ski-lift operators.
somebody wants to blow up vermont,
i would swear to it.
somebody tried to blow up howard dean
long before that iowa scream
for making vermont the healthiest state
for being the first governor
to legalize same-sex civil unions
still, howard dean gave us much to hate
for not treating the abenaki and vermont as equal nations
for balancing a budget with no reservations
about discarding certain moral considerations
still, you won’t find a billboard
or a sprawl-fart
inside the entire state
but these monstrous chain stores
line many a new york or hampshire border town
pointed at vermont like missile batteries.
somebody wants to blow up vermont
for having a town that passed an ordinance
calling for the arrest of bush and cheney
should they stroll down main street
somebody wants to blow up that cop
who was quoted in the local paper as saying
that he would happily arrest bush
should he decide to visit brattleboro
somebody wants to blow up vermont
because it is the only state
where bush, cheney, rice, and powell
never set foot during their eight horrendous years
of unchecked tyranny.
somebody wants to blow up vermont
for being the home of bread and puppet theater
for hosting too many free-thinking artists and writers
somebody wants to blow up vermont
because a higher percentage of its people
actually read books and go to libraries
because you won’t find as many television sets,
locked doors, and alarmed cars.
somebody wants to blow up vermont
for having only six murders last year
for not giving fux news
enough headlines to scare enough vermonters
into believing this is a bad place to live.
somebody should blow up the jim douglas machine
for bathing in the spent fuel pool
of dirty money from an industry that says its clean
as if all those casks sitting by the river in vernon
do not have the filthiest isotopes inside
as if mr. do-less is worth more
than the pair of scissors he uses to cut ribbons
while cutting the budget for education,
healthcare, roads, and welfare.
they say he is a kinder, gentler republican
which is like saying there is a nicer capitalism
which is like saying absolutely nothing.
somebody can go ahead and blow up
the part of vermont that drapes confederate flags
that thinks southern windham county
is akin to southern alabama
somebody can blow up all the offices
of the various hate groups
that operate under cover of darkness
because they don’t like two men holding hands
because they can’t stand black people who own land
because they won’t tolerate mexicans without immigration papers who,
within six months time, might make a couple grand.
somebody can go ahead and blow up
the part of vermont that is all the worst
of what is most
of the rest of amerika
somebody from that other amerika
can grab up that part of vermont
and load it onto a series of truck convoys
with all those barrels of spent nuclear fuel
and ship it far, far away
never to be seen again
anywhere in vermont.
somebody wants to blow up vermont
from far-away right-wing radio broadcasts
and conservative newspaper editorials
somebody wants to use their ignorant words
as a cluster of atom bombs
somebody wants to blow up vermont
from deep inside the beltway
push a little red button
and make it all vanish
somebody wants to blow up vermont
for being the ultimate bad example.
