The House of the Setting Sun

Abstract

“Become a rag again and the poorest may wave you” Pier Paolo Pasolini: To the Red Flag I put my mouth to your misery, New Orleans, inundated and soaking with death. Here lies: war lies piled so high, this floating prison of a cemetery cries out of rage at the end of its breath. Here, in the last delta, Desire lies on its side, is rolled, and rolled over upon by its own government, and crushed. Summertime is over and the livin’ is dead, and ’round midnight all hopes are looted. No one will come clean of the Katrina of New Orleans in this sinking house of the setting sun. Bodies so Black and so blue from loving what wouldn’t spit on their shoes if they needed a shine. Let alone a dime. Or water. America, you were always scorched earth in our mouths, always a baptism of crap, always a rain of disaster streaming down the panes of our broken eyes. Now our rags are the most torn, our jazz the most blue, our poor the poorest that can be worn in the soul’s thrift shop. Now that all is lost and there’s only nothing to lose...“Long live the courage and the sorrow and the innocence of the poor!” The real flag’s in tatters. Begin to wave it. Jack Hirschman