A flag for my lapel
I’m going to get a flag pin,
To wear on the lapel,
Of my fourteen hundred sixty four dollar,
Brooks Brothers suit.
The suit I am going to buy from,
The shop up on Madison Avenue,
The day I get a job,
And leave the house promptly at 8 am,
Every day.
…and then…
I’ll park my ass at Starbucks,
For forty minutes or so,
Just so I can check out the shit that’s,
Buzzing into my cellular telephone,
And my electronic tablet,
And all of the other electronic devices,
The ones that I am going to need,
Once I arrive at my job…no – my position,
Where I do lots of high speed things,
Requiring electronic endurance, and motivation.
…but…
My wife comes into the room,
It’s about a half an hour before sun up,
And she says to me, quietly,
“you silly old hippie, Jack,
You haven’t been out of bed in a week,
And you sure as hell aren’t buying,
Any Brooks Brothers suits with,
That tiny little check that you get,
From the United States Government.”
So you might as well get up,
Come drink tea with me before I go to work,
And then sit at your desk with the cat,
And try to write something…anything,
That’s what you’re good at…writing something,
How about a poem?
And I tell her that I haven’t written a poem,
Or at least a poem that I can remember being good,
Or a poem that was even halfway decent in say
— ten years,
Not since before my first deployment.
Ed's end of the planet books 
Congratulations. I really like this poem. How kind and human and insightful. Should to be published.
Thank you for your kind words, Pete. And again, thank you for stopping here and taking time to read and comment.
I like to imagine that somewhere in a Starbucks in a business district, a man in a Brooks Brothers suit with a flag lapel pin, sits at his tablet, feigning “busy-ness,” while patiently crafting a poem about having a leisurely cup of tea with his wife before she heads off to work and he and the cat settle in for a day of writing . . .and then his secretary buzzes him to remind him he’s late for a meeting.
I like your take on that! Thanks for reading. That guy you describe at Starbucks sort of reminds me of myself at one time – except I did not have a secretary (and, ok I’ll confess – I bought my suits at Mens Warehouse in Ledgewood, New Jersey).