The Kingdom
John Vanderslice
I was stranded in the hospital ward again
if they pick you up this is where you'll meet your end
when the bombs went off they moved the capitol north
you better be enlisted, you ought to be conscripted to fight the sino war
it would not be for baltimore,
that I would die for
it wouldn't be for country
or castle or keep but me
there's no way to win a shadow war
when every radical you stab excites a hundred more
there's a place, the rust belt, I've heard it's free
it was hardest hit, we were busy fighting the wrong enemy
I found an abandoned factory
on the edges of a lake
it seems they made bread there
and it smelled of pies and cake
I slept on bags of rye and yeast
I wandered through the fields
of honey clover, dead machines, and wheat