If eight years we labored
in canals and valleys and
on girders and then
for four years we spilled **** blood and
the Depression is lifted or
the depression is lifted
or not really.
America, your deep vein thrombosis
the size of a
lilywhite Toyota Highlander
You don’t make things anymore.
Your Marxists winter in the empty museums.
Your union halls belong to the company.
You ought to be Haymarket men,
bloodcleaned and ready for anything
but instead you workshop one-liners.
America you are afraid to love.
America you are afraid of medicine
and the medicine you do take,
bankrupts you.
America reset your passwords
and the twenty-year-olds will help you find a mate
we promise.
Do you feel how distant you are becoming from yourself?
Do you feel how words must
towards the things they stand in for
like a silhouette
like an ironic silhouette
like a sketch
like a mere shape?
I cannot be certain any longer. No,
really, I am losing that skill. I lose myself
in coffee cups dreaming of painted lips. My bedtime
stories are of Robespierre and Louis Ex-Vee-I; they
put me to sleep instantly. I can read this poem eighteen times
and never feel a thing. If nothing makes sense,
it’s because we decided we didn’t need it.
America do you hate
but not really?
America do you listen
but not really?
America,
you’re trying to eat better
but the poor and ruined in Missouri
still chew on plyboard and drink flat Mountain Dew
you want engineers but ********** to starlets
America,
not one thing will satisfy you
not any screen or voting lever
your children wander supermarkets
putting everything they find in a basket
America,
give Louisiana to the French
cede the Black Hills to the Sioux
retreat into your telephones
and remember Tippecanoe
America a voice
is singing from the past
and you would do well to listen.
Jan 19, 2017
Jan 19, 2017 at 5:56 PM UTC
If eight years we labored
in canals and valleys and
on girders and then
for four years we spilled **** blood and
the Depression is lifted or
the depression is lifted
or not really.
America, your deep vein thrombosis
the size of a
lilywhite Toyota Highlander
You don’t make things anymore.
Your Marxists winter in the empty museums.
Your union halls belong to the company.
You ought to be Haymarket men,
bloodcleaned and ready for anything
but instead you workshop one-liners.
America you are afraid to love.
America you are afraid of medicine
and the medicine you do take,
bankrupts you.
America reset your passwords
and the twenty-year-olds will help you find a mate
we promise.
Do you feel how distant you are becoming from yourself?
Do you feel how words must
towards the things they stand in for
like a silhouette
like an ironic silhouette
like a sketch
like a mere shape?
I cannot be certain any longer. No,
really, I am losing that skill. I lose myself
in coffee cups dreaming of painted lips. My bedtime
stories are of Robespierre and Louis Ex-Vee-I; they
put me to sleep instantly. I can read this poem eighteen times
and never feel a thing. If nothing makes sense,
it’s because we decided we didn’t need it.
America do you hate
but not really?
America do you listen
but not really?
America,
you’re trying to eat better
but the poor and ruined in Missouri
still chew on plyboard and drink flat Mountain Dew
you want engineers but ********** to starlets
America,
not one thing will satisfy you
not any screen or voting lever
your children wander supermarkets
putting everything they find in a basket
America,
give Louisiana to the French
cede the Black Hills to the Sioux
retreat into your telephones
and remember Tippecanoe
America a voice
is singing from the past
and you would do well to listen.
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