I Am No Alan Ginsberg

America,

who are you?

You are the child of dreams and nightmares

I am the one who dreamt you

I am the one who feared you

Hiding under my blankets

Wondering if now is when the bomb will be dropped

Thus, the lullaby of night

acted upon my open spaces

Sounds of silence till break of day

Let it be, let it be

Peace in pieces in a house

Where sex is heard through the walls

Just as the traffic is

The hugs and laughter in the other room

Filter through the walls gently

Until the yelling

A clash waiting to be felled

The luck of the draw to have

Coffee and eggs and hashbrowns

Along with baseball cards and elbow jabs

If the love is too soft, you never want to leave

If the love is too toxic

You cannot grow strong enough to go

A mighty mixture of the two

Makes you a broken toy

My emptiness has made me whole

It is who I am

A welcome mat for you

A space that is open

For your words to fill

We are all one

Under the stars and stripes

Divided by our histories

Our beliefs

Our loves

Our opposition

To one another

We are all one giant

Acting out millions of different desires

Seeking:

ice cream,

Apple pie, toasted corn flakes,

A cleaner apartment,

A space with a view,

A welcome maneuver,

A handsome driver,

A lady with a nightshade blocking her eyes,

The horse at the derby

Shaking a leg at the sky

In The culture of malleable social status

If you are brutal, lucky, or smart enough

You can burst through that divide

And make it to the other side

I hate the speech that is like drivel

Dripping from my brain

America, you are my mother and father

I love you and I loathe you

You gave me my home

You offered me everything

But in the name of your love

You stole the very gift you gave

And left me adrift

You were just a child’s howl away

From a dumpster fire

In your complacent eyes

The lens of your myopic vision

Chopped our bodies into parts

unrecognizably dry heaving

All that was good

All around us is now in battle

Just you wait until tomorrow

each element against the other

each element against itself

hot against hotter

as our bubble gets tighter and tighter

Here,

You are only a this or a that

Never just a person

Needing connection

Suckling on the fate of our creation

Hating the course of our direction

Waiting for the other shoe to drop

Trained to violence and despair

Watching our voices go up in the air

Big swirls of smoking disaster

I will put my wimpy, aching shoulder to the wheel

To see the grindstone turn

I will embody mother earth

She speaks with the wind

And the sun

the brilliance of math

the distraction of story

When I think of you

I think of a shy boy

Hiding behind his mother’s skirt

Peeping out

Just wanting to know what is real

And what is fake

Looking out from two clear eyes

Wondering when her hand will strike