Convention Hall

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There was the amplified and echoing

“optimistic hatred of the actual”

that every flag waving

to make it so kept

waving to the joyous rhythm of

even after

in the docile chaos of a

confetti of balloons

tumbling out of darkness

high above the lights.

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Look at Us, the anthem,

Look at Us, the shield,

the sacrifice —

but look

at how unfillable

the cavern of the Great Hall is,

more vacant and silent

for the stage dismantled,

the massive absence

of the cheering and singing; look

at how the last of us,

our delegate

torch in hand

sleepwalks in patrol

patrolling nothing

like a soldier “in the

midst of doubt, in

the collapse of creeds”

who doesn’t know

the war has ended,

behind enemy lines

no longer there,

obedient to “a cause

he little understands,

in a campaign

of which he has

no notion, under

tactics of which

he doesn’t see the use”–

moving in darkness

from light to smaller light

along the catwalks

through the tunnels

over the swept floor

to the farthest exit sign.
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