ketchum id mar 94apology to america
part 1
i once as a feverish
young man
grabbed the last bus out of town
and saw the twinkling lights
of smallburg american
skeptical future
and furrowed in
sweat brow
disclaimed the actual
if not real
american
dream spinning forth
out of control
in tender shoots
of forming
of birthing
of learning
and so sallied about
the darkash of dead skys
in the smog of
perfect chaos
and choked out a sad song
of wailing grief
angry
disillusioned
blinded by
my blindness
oh america
you are what
you are
i bring forth to your parlor
the dried flowers
that i cast away so many
decades ago
in the almost too dark
time when the last honest
tribute to your
beauty
had lain bleeding on the
stark hills of korea
and in the bloody presidential
street massacre of
dallas
and
in a hundred other places
where common enough whipped people
cowered in the truth
that i thought
you ignored
part 2
america america
i will tell you
where your father is
he lies mouldering
beneath the ash and humus
of a thousand final
graves
in europe and
asia
america america
i will tell you
where your mother is
she sits pining in the
birthing chambers of
a new dawn
midwife and
mother
to democracy
in europe and
asia
oh america
i stand sorrowful
in the shadow of time
dwarfed by the spectacle
that has whirled about me
as i watched you
bend over your tired work
your endurance baffling
your beauty still
etched upon your face
and like a bronze maiden
standing in a harbor
i once watched you recede
like her torch hand high
against the fog of new york
idle ignorance
having seen you so often
i saw you not
saw her not
and when you disappeared
from view
against the nothingness of large
ocean
i wept inside
not for your face
but for your touch
not for your satin robe
but for your voice
not for your smile
but for your womb
part 3
the mysteries of
america
have been revealed
by the universe
under the starry skies that
spread troubled over a world
seething
in the caldron
of ever changing
blood
and
tears
collected for the millennia
that man has tried
to be an
angel
she has been ennobled by circumstance
even as
she has been wronged by the rough hands of greed
she has been vindicated by time
even as
she has been preyed upon by the thugs of opportunity
she walks freely in the breeze of goodness
even as
she has been sullied by the bulging of mans powerlust
america waits by the roadside
for the long trucker to pass
she sits in the beer joint
awaiting also
for the neon sign to flash off
she lays prostrate before the alters
of a thousand church sanctuaries
she smiles into the mirrors
of a million early morning bathrooms
she sits atop the standards
of countless benign flagpoles
and she wanders the lost roads
of an amazing continent
i offer my apology to america
as i offer it to myself
and to the gentlegods
who turn and sway
as i in windy vagaries
change my direction
and wander under her
smile of love
copyright © 1994-2018 aperfectmadness.com