you, the unfinished country

by jota

Posted to Action Poetry on 2004-02-14 17:31:00

Parent message is 600706
you
America
I awake to find your
Lawyers and taxmen
Have broken my nose
America
You the unfinished
Business the whistler
of wallets time keeper
of beauty
and souls chained
by the drugstore counters
Counting dollars
and holes
left from forgotten
cigarettes
At the diner by the
Side of the road
Your minimum slave wages
hysterical ants
masses crawling dependent
Cockroaches and rats
Yellow wallpapered
black basketball cats
The radio playing low
in the back
cosmic baserunners
stealing the show
In the kitchen the glow
of the bulb by the sink
and the stench of
toiletroom stalls
the walk-in freezer
ringed by the walls
floor slick the hobart
egg beater stops circling
The dishwasher the cook
the gangster The cop
The gumsnapping waitress
Watching tv footballs
Stabbing the uprights
hollared by the heart
Shot in the throat
Cuffed in the head
thumped in the wagon
A shot and a beer
for the empty dried stomach
the report of a drink
and the blow of a drunk
mingis trumpet
benzedrine kisses
feet locked by elbows
punched throwing rocks
missing the windows
high the task of your kisses
on my knees begging for mercy
this money so easy and now
you come for my taxes
meanwhile dogs growling low
in the yard down below
caught in the act
housewives hurry to
steal back home
The insurance adjuster
spooning banana cream pie
mouthed by the fist full
stuffed all alone,
waiting for grace
and the telephone brain
wailing ringing
for nobody home
In the middle of the night

So where is the money
o but I peeked and I saw
Stamping away you wiping
the dust of the dawn gone
Your stains in the morning
New and improved
Ready for day
America
Today is your day
Tonight is your chance

America, you the detective
Listen, look
all your talk shows talk of
Disappearing women and men
Full of cock, where do you swing
Your swaggering missiles now?
Where do you point them?
Where will they go?

When is tomorrow?

America, you the unfinished highway
Rivers and deltas of dreams
The sky is full of you coming
Back on earth down below
Your trucks rumble past
To make it to Safeway by dawn
Bringing toothpaste and tomatoes
To huddled brown masses black white
Yellow red all dying for love
You and your desolate angels
Desperate thumbing a ride
Crying by the side of the road
Who is it who knows
These serial clown killers
That roam every town

Teaching you patience
Uncle Sam
Is like rolling
A tree a star a bell
Up a mountain of marbles
Me the train coming
Round the bend
In a bad western film
Running off the tracks
A striped avalanche of trees
Stars and bells
Stunned, grim-jawed young
Jack Kerouac yells
Comes
Tumbling down

That book in his pocket
A brakeman’s guide to braking
He never knew how

O America
You
the
Unfinished country
Of my soul

when will you ever grow up?