ON PATRIOTISM, GOD, AND SWIMMING NAKED please rise and remove your pants for our national anthem
I thought I heard. Or wish. What shows more respect, hats or pants? Please remove your limbs, your tattoos, your gum, that smirk off your face.
We swam naked in the sting of the chlorined high school pool, thinking of our grandmothers to keep from getting hard. I prefer to be pant-less
and playing a tambourine when my time comes, though I might want to keep my hat on. In high school, I ran naked through the local Big Boy restaurant
late one Friday after a night of extreme drinking and boredom. My father grounded me for not wearing a mask like a polite streaker
and my girlfriend insisted I quit drinking. Not such a leap, I protested—not like that naked high dive that prompted hair growth
or public urination, or in some cases, tears. The girls, segregated from us, were from all reports miserable in their shapeless blue suits, still wet
from the previous class. We were red or white when they walked in by accident. We had no Blacks at our school. America
the land of segregation and the home of the naïve. I ran right past the Big Boy exit and had to turn around and run back.
It’s those entrances and exits that trip us up, right, America? I’m trying not to double-entendre myself to death, but never ask a naked drunken
teenager for directions or loyalty or to go to war. I’m not a big fan of war. We all bow our heads to stare thoughtfully and respectfully
at our genitals. Take me out to the old ball game. Sorry. Perhaps we should all remove our right sock for the pledge of allegiance.
“This Land is Your Land,” offers only one choice. Every home is the home of the brave. Our bodies betray us,
one and all. Is that in the song? When Jesus rose after three days, did he whisper the lyrics
to Francis Scott Key? I’ve genuflected naked many times and hope to do so many more times. I think Jesuswas naked when he rose, then they quickly wrapped him in an American Flag. “God Bless America,” by Kate Smith.
A for a dive. C for a jump. F for retreat, surrender. I did a cannonball off the high dive. Cannonballs were forbidden,
yet no one got hurt, or even wet, except for me, who got the paddle. But I rose from the dead and got dressed
and headed to American Government class where I learned about the electoral college and the sanitation system and Betsy Ross.
The teacher took attendance, and I said Here! Just another daily miracle in the land of the damned.
TRACTION Danggggg Jim – your profile has gotten some traction classmates.com
In high school, I dreamed of getting traction. I have no memory of using the word dang with one g much less 5. Perhaps in remote areas of the country they said Danggggg! in 1974 but on smoky Detroit streets we shouted Kick Out the Jams, Mother Fuckers! with the MC5.
I slipped in every boozy puddle concocted from my own sloppy spills that year. Perhaps those classmates are curious to see I’m not in prison, still alive and/ or they think I still might be able to hook them up with some good dope.
Though I got off that train of thought a long time ago, I still slip from time to time to time. Or maybe I’m skipping
Kick out the jams! I turn into the skid. Danggggg.
Jim Daniels is the author of numerous collections of poetry, most recently The Middle Ages (Red Mountain Press, 2018) and Street Calligraphy (Steel Toe Books, 2017). His third collection, Places/Everyone (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), won the inaugural Brittingham Prize in Poetry in 1985. He lives in Pittsburgh and is the Thomas Stockham University Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University