I, Too

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

A Supermarket In California

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the
streets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit
supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles
full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! - - and you,
Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the

A Song

Come, I will make the continent indissoluble;
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon;
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.


I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of
America, and along the shores of the great lakes, and all over
the prairies;

I Am Waiting

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting
for someone to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting

America The Beautiful

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,

I Hear America Singing

I Hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics- each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat- the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench- the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter's song- the ploughboy's, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother- or of the young wife at work- or of the girl sewing or washing- Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day- At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.

It Ain't What You Do, It's What It Does To You

I have not bummed across America
with only a dollar to spare, one pair
of busted Levi's and a bowie knife.
I have lived with thieves in Manchester.

I have not padded through the Taj Mahal,
barefoot, listening to the space between
each footfall picking up and putting down
its print against the marble floor. But I


Ode To Maize

America, from a grain
of maize you grew
to crown
with spacious lands
the ocean foam.
A grain of maize was your geography.
From the grain
a green lance rose,
was covered with gold,
to grace the heights

Columbus

Once upon a time there was an Italian,
And some people thought he was a rapscallion,
But he wasn't offended,
Because other people thought he was splendid,
And he said the world was round,
And everybody made an uncomplimentary sound,
But he went and tried to borrow some money from Ferdinand
But Ferdinand said America was a bird in the bush and he'd rather have a berdinand,
But Columbus' brain was fertile, it wasn't arid,
And he remembered that Ferdinand was married,

Be Angry At The Sun

That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.

Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors.
This republic, Europe, Asia.


Crossing Nation

Under silver wing
San Francisco's towers sprouting
thru thin gas clouds,
Tamalpais black-breasted above Pacific azure
Berkeley hills pine-covered below-
Dr Leary in his brown house scribing Independence
Declaration
typewriter at window
silver panorama in natural eyeball-


Children Of The Street

In their faces a colourless gaping of life's adversity:
the hopeless grief of a hellish existence;
Malnourished, starving, filth and olfactory horrors;  
Their humiliating nothingness clothed in rags;  
Usually barefooted with low self-esteem;  
Begging, and rummaging through garbage for
thrown-away foods to assuage pangs of hunger;
Oftentimes feeling cold that comes from being sickly;
Sleeping or indulging in cheap cocktails of toxic
sedatives at the dark corners of the street:

America For Me

'Tis fine to see the Old World and travel up and down
Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,
To admire the crumblyh castles and the statues and kings
But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things.

So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again and there I long to be,
In the land of youth and freedom, beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.


Shine, Perishing Republic

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening
to empire
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the
mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots
to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and deca-
dence; and home to the mother.

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stub-

A Sad State Of Freedom

You waste the attention of your eyes,
the glittering labour of your hands,
and knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves
of which you'll taste not a morsel;
you are free to slave for others-
you are free to make the rich richer.

The moment you're born
they plant around you
mills that grind lies

As I Sat Alone By Blue Ontario's Shores

AS I sat alone, by blue Ontario's shore,
As I mused of these mighty days, and of peace return'd, and the dead
that return no more,
A Phantom, gigantic, superb, with stern visage, accosted me;
Chant me the poem, it said, that comes from the soul of America-
chant me the carol of victory;
And strike up the marches of Libertad- marches more powerful yet;
And sing me before you go, the song of the throes of Democracy.

(Democracy- the destin'd conqueror- yet treacherous lip-smiles

A Nation Of Cowards

(Dedicated to you, my Brothers and Sisters)

Powerful words,
Truthful words,
Honest words,
Brave words;
This is exactly what the Doctor orders,
For a nation, who's trying to fight the horrors
Of blatant racism,
Unfairness, injustice,

Castro Alves From Brazil

Castro Alves from Brazil, for whom did you sing?
Did you sing for the flower? For the water
whose beauty whispered words to the stones?
Did you sing to the eyes, to the torn profile
of the woman you once loved? For the spring?

Yes, but those petals were not dewed,
those black waters had no words,
those eyes were those who saw death,
still burning the tortures behind love,

The Glory Trumpeter

Old Eddie's face, wrinkled with river lights,
Looked like a Mississippi man's. The eyes,
Derisive and avuncular at once,
Swivelling, fixed me. They'd seen
Too many wakes, too many cathouse nights.
The bony, idle fingers on the valves
Of his knee-cradled horn could tear
Through 'Georgia on My Mind' or 'Jesus Saves'
With the same fury of indifference,
If what propelled such frenzy was despair.

Bus East

Society has good intentions Bureaucracy is like a friend
5 years ago - other furies other losses -

America's
trying to control the uncontrollable Forest fires, Vice

The essential smile In the essential sleep Of the children Of the essential mind

I'm
all thru playing the American