Bonne Fête Nationale !

FÊTE ST. JEAN

O John if only you knew how your name
is twisted into daggered fleurs de lys
how they baptize this jabbering city
annually in bannering blue flames.
You would cover your bearded chin in shame
would regret how your eccentricity
has changed by some ancestral alchemy
to the pyrite of political fame.
Once fed through the machine of history
Saint-Jean becomes saint gens, Gens du pays
an anthem crackling from parched ember lips
brewing thirst inside a tribal ellipse,
distrust rises like vapour, a halo
for Mount-Royal as Le Peuple swoons below.