are the bombs still bursting?

i'd just like to state, for the record,
that i haven't stood for the national anthem,
or contributed to it in any way, since i was a wee sprat,
and grasped that, like all national anthems, it was a war song.
a mindless pledge of unconditional support for war criminals,
whose particularly astonishing litany of unrepented genocides
and blatant assaults on the democracy of others
would put to shame their very own angry god,
even on one of his most self-absorbed
and decimatingly self-righteous days.