Published: December 13, 2007

I have a duffel bag

Stashed under my bed

In it cash, Lithuanian passport

Grundig radio, and autographed

Photograph of Jimmy Hoffa

The prez sez

Not to worry

Folds his arms across

His Halloween cape

And waits for the

Sun to go down

Where to hide when the

Yalu overflows?

Dublin, Antwerp, Munich

(the stash is best in Munich)

Or the Frozen Zone?

I’m eighteen

But I don’t want to die

My own father fled

To Canada to escape

Nixon’s brownshirts.

And I don’t even have enough gas to get out

Of Sopranoland.

Like Hoffa,

We’re all made redundant

By minimum wage scabs in Mumbai

As Gunga Din finally gets his revenge

Corporate statism knows

No borders,

Only ROI,

And we end up MIA’s.

We’ve become the

Brazil of the

Northern Hemisphere.

The Five Families control

All of the Wealth.

And the rest of us get

To ride the subways

Which don’t even

Run on time.