America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January
        17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go **** yourself with your atom bomb.
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I
        need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not
        the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back
        it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical
        joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday
        somebody goes on trial for ******.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid
        I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses
        in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle
        Max after he came over from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by
        Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner
        candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Business-
        men are serious. Movie producers are serious.
        Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of
        marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable
        private literature that goes 1400 miles an hour
        and twenty-five-thousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of
        underprivileged who live in my flowerpots
        under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers
        is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that
        I'm a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly
        mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as
        individual as his automobiles more so they're
        all different sexes.
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500
        down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Com-
        munist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a
        handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
        speeches were free everybody was angelic and
        sentimental about the workers it was all so sin-
        cere you have no idea what a good thing the
        party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand
        old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me
        cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody
        must have been a spy.
America you don't really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen.
        And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power
        mad. She wants to take our cars from out our
        garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers'
        Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia.
        Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta-
        tions.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read.
        Him need ******* *******. Hah. Her make us
        all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in
        the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes
        in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and
        psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

                                Berkeley, January 17, 1956

America**

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twenty-seven cents January 17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go **** yourself with your atom bomb
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday somebody goes on trial for
******.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over
from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie
producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of marijuana millions of genitals
an unpublishable private literature that goes 1400 miles and hour and
twentyfivethousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of underpriviliged who live in
my flowerpots under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that I'm a Catholic.

America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as individual as his
automobiles more so they're all different sexes
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500 down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Communist Cell meetings they
sold us garbanzos a handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and sentimental about the
workers it was all so sincere you have no idea what a good thing the party
was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand old man a real mensch Mother
Bloor made me cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody must have
been a spy.
America you don're really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take
our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader's Digest. her wants our
auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him makes Indians learn read. Him need ******* *******.
Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts
factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

An obvious homage to AG*

America it is time for an update.
I am still sick of your insane demands,
just shut up and try to listen.
America, it's 4 AM. November 5th, 2016
and you have become a shambling giant
crushing us all as you stumble on.
America we have come to a parting of the ways.
America your founding fathers
were rich white men who sold their truths
for power and then ***** their slaves
and whipped the People into shape.
America Clinton and Trump
really are the best you have to offer.
America I am voting NO!
I no longer accept your vicious lies.
The Wobblies and anarchists were right.
To rise from the ashes something
must first burn and die.
America I am holding a Zippo.
America I am thinking about you.
Your cities are scoured by ******;
your heartland drenched in ****.
Your jails overflow with potheads.
Your police have become assassins
who cry like little girls
when their victims shoot back.
Your banks have stolen
all the money in the world
yet I am broke as usual.
In the 60s I actually thought
there was some hope of redemption.
Youth and drugs create such illusions.
Now I live alone with a sociopathic cat.
My friends are dead or scattered.
I am a poet in a country that can't read.
America your brainwashed minions
stare into their TVs, awaiting further orders.
America I don’t own a TV.
America we are well and truly ******.
America once I fought a war for you.
I would never do that again.
America you have turned your guns on hope
and devoured it, feathers and all.
Now that is a Thanksgiving dinner.
America don't you ever weary
of eating your citizens' dreams?
America let me get to my angry point.
I am declaring my independence from you.
I am in you but not of you.
Stick your baubles up your ***.
You have enough slaves. You don't need me.
So long America. I gave you an honest chance.
America, don't call me, I'll call you.

She hugged me, and I breathed in deep.
Better than any perfume or cologne in the world, I know that smell.
It's the scent of a thousand lost boy summers fighting pirates and chasing shadows.
It's rust dust and rail yards and campfire smoke.
It's gypsy smiles and moldy locks and secrets whispered through the trees.
It's waking up to gentle words from complete strangers we connected with the night before.
It's the scent of broken lips and battered kisses the morning after sturgis.
It's the sun glistening off an oil stain on the highway.
It's the scent of river washed clothes and ticks and lice and fleas and kids named after all those things.

It's a scent of secret love affairs, and ****** exploration and anarchist propaganda.
It's the smell of the E.L.F. And the Crimethinc. Ex Workers Collective. It's the smell of the Wobblies.

But mainly, it's a smell that reminds me that they are still out there, laying in wait, in the shadows of the broken fence in the rail yard. Arms willing to hold you and fight for you, and never let you go.

MY SON

He was born early with a will to survive
It hurt like hell but then I was still alive
All wrinkled and hairy with a frown on his face
He ****** his thumb and kept up with the pace

The nights were easy and the days were fun
Til he got to his feet and learnt  how to run
We went through the grazes the cuts and stitches
The well worn holes in the knees of his britches

From a shy little boy he turned into a tyrant
Stamping his feet and demanding attention
He chucked those wobblies and copped the strap
The next thing you knew he was up on the lap

He tried every mean trick to get his own way
And always had too much to say for his age
He was up front and honest as far as that goes
But whinging and whining and full of the woes

He reached his teens with a quiet sort of rumble
Loved his football and the rough and tumble
He'd never once given me any real grief or pain
But then he turned sixteen and I near went insane

As from then he learnt how to drive a car
Taking out girls and fronting up to the bars
The sleepless nights then were never ending
The rules I set he was forever bending

He's left home now, grown into a man
Holds down a job and sings with a band
There are times I still see the little boy
When I ask him to sing and he goes all coy

If I dare to question a decision he makes
Or pry into personal steps he may take
So I take a back seat and wait till he calls
And hope he doesn't take any hard falls

The last time you said that you screamed it, "******* parasites, always looking over my fence." although there was no one there. It stayed like that for a few weeks. It was obvious the wobblies had turned on you, no more safe place for a union supporter.
             The tracks that lead to out of town kept rearing through your skull as if an invite had been sent through some unknown path of communication. The maddness lasted, sometimes it was worse. One day in particular you pinned your curtains closed until there wasn't one speck of light to be seen inside. "They're coming, you wait, they are timing everything". On that night you ran the shower and shut the door. As steam arose into the room you swallowed twenty sleeping pills and placed a plastic bag over your head. Radio blearing in the backround either for comfort or to drown out any sounds of gasping or both! When they wheeled you out of the house your arm fell off the side of the stretcher as if you were saying goodbye. You would have been embarrassed at the thought of your cold white hand waving. You were angry and scared and had said goodbye years before. There was no need of one last. You left like you came, sadly and yet somehow smiling as if you might have known something no one else did. Maybe you did sweetheart, maybe you did.