Drummed out of the infantry of death

I came back to you carrying

The poems of my soul

Opened the door of life

And found only death inside

America

I have read the state of the union

And listened to the state of the economy

By statesmen in a state of hysteria

America where the poor and the black

Are sentenced to Attica

And the rich serve time in
The halls of Congress

America where

The coal miner’s lungs are used

For corporate profit in between

Funerals for preventable mine deaths

America where the only sounds heard

Is the opening and closing

Of the downtown Bank of America

And Wall Street rules

America where the angry voices

Of soccer moms can be heard

Preparing their children for death

Amidst the hurried jerks of masturbation

Coming from the closets of the university

America where the elderly

Are treated like abandoned railroad boxcars

Kept idle unemployed

Forced to walk the streets

Like an unacceptable poem

The dispossessed caught up in your lies

Left broken bleeding like gutted fish

America

It's hard living in a country where

The hours are shaped like coffins

The law and order administration

Running wild at Waco and Ruby Ridge

America where the politicians sold

The country to General Motors and IBM

And gave the people buffalo stew

And scientology

Readers Digest has renewed its option

On the educational system

The mafia weans the poor on drugs

While McDonald's and Coca Cola

Compete for the nation's heart

America

You leave a trail of death behind

Everywhere you go

Desecrating the bodies of men

Women and children

From Wounded Knee to Vietnam

From Iran to Afghanistan

Leaving behind a trail of genocide

As your calling card

America where the Narc's of New York City

Grow fat on the fears of thousands

Of junkies

Where the high priest of the cemetery

Drinks the rooster's blood

At the crossroad of reality

America

Where holiness is found in

The bowels of Buddha

Where Christ died on the cross

And the police were quick

To take his place

America

The years grow heavy in

The cavity of my heart

Leaving me feeling

Like an army mule carrying

A cargo of death

Your bicentennial message

Ringing loud and clear

In every cash register across America

The American way

If you can't kill them

Buy them into the system

America

I grow older carrying a new found vision

Warmer than a child's smile

Walking the streets of my mind's third eye

Lady death blinking like

The Flickering candles on a birthday cake

America

You are the only county I have known

For any length of time

And unlike some poets

I have no desire for Cuba or Moscow

But I am a man. I am a poet.

I am the energy running through

Your withered veins

Not afraid of your shock and awe

Your disregard for international law

All too aware of the storm troopers of justice

Who would turn off the beauty

And discard it like a rusted faucet

These men in blue

Who sniff the blood of my wounds

Like a hound dog crossing a river of blood

Their sirens playing mad tunes outside my window

Like a poet forced to read underwater

Where the poet twice dead and once resurrected

Turns over in his grave

But the middle finger he raises

Is jammed back down his throat

Until the shit he shits is theirs

And the blood they bleed is his

And the cries united fill the sky

Like a lonely bird lost in flight