Happy Birthday to the USA

As everyone else is leaving town
Leaving it quiet leaving it nice
I am settling in and settling down
With my cat and my bowl of brown rice

They can have their barbecues and beer
Preferably far away from here
I will not eat meat but I will greet
Independence independently
By writing poetry drinking tea
And being free out in the sunshine
Of my weekend ghost town feeling fine

I would love to shoot off fireworks
But they made them illegal (the jerks)
Nor will I go to a public show
With fellow citizens I don't know
Just write a poem or two or three
And as they celebrate I agree
To say in my own if offbeat way:

(This is not the day to say
That the war has come to stay
And will never go away)

Happy Birthday to the USA

+Steven Curtis Lance



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