poem 22 of a poem a day for 2012

just start typing words "America the beautiful..."
(a nomination of Henry Miller for President)


the sense of movement will come
and eat whole worlds
giants mouths suckled with blood,
you must know the neighborhood here
what to look out for,who to see,who not to see
when you roll down the windows passing by
every street cornering Jesus with an ugly stick

modernity says pick up the pace
if you want to fit in,
if you want to feel the squeeze
instead of being eased
into crushed oblivions
hit the gas and go,
after all this is America
we steal the rest of the world
and sell you tickets to your execution
paying to view it on shiny tell-you-visions screens
though every dirt-level deviled smile,
every barrio,ghetto and dilapidation of guile
knows that beauty has always been inside
the individual thought here
and not in the satisfaction
of attraction to the packaging

wrapping colors from flag to melting pot
are slagged joys,incremental payments
that don't seem to bleed as fast as we do
the science of reading the pooled blood
is only another way of parsing time
while picking apart humanity
in the chained splatters of what matters
crows eat our poisons
bring the little pieces of liver
across the wide chasms of America's
hunger that is ever-waiting for you too...

as I type those words and start to table
I bend myself into ready at the able
I find myself with keyboard,pencil and pen
a world citizen with no need again
for a flashlight passport or candle visa home
to silhouette these words into the poem


EJR (c)