Independence Day

Wherein are words sublime or noble? What
Invests one speech with haloed eminence,
Makes it the sesame for all doors shut,
Yet in its like sees but impertinence?
Is it the hue? Is it the cast of eye,
The curve of lip or Asiatic breath,
Which...

         Today the moon sees fit to come between a parched earth
    and sun, hurrying the premature darkness. A rooster in the yard
            cuts off its crowing, fooled into momentary sleep.
               And soon the Perseid showers, broken...

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against...

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
 
(America never was America to me.)
 
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it...

Stripes and stars,
Antique cars,
Pretty girls,
Baton twirls,
Spangled gowns,
Friendly clowns,
Smiling folks,
Papered spokes,
Marching feet,
Endless heat,
Clapping hands,
High school bands,
Town traditions,
Politicians,
Perspiration,
Celebration!

because it has no pure products

because the Pacific Ocean sweeps along the coastline
because the water of the ocean is cold
and because land is better than ocean

because I say we rather than they

because I live in California
I have eaten fresh artichokes
and...

It's the Fourth of July, the flags
are painting the town,
the plastic forks and knives
are laid out like a parade.

And I'm grilling, I've got my apron,
I've got potato salad, macaroni, relish,
I've got a hat shaped   
like the state of Pennsylvania.

I ask my...

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,   
Marked the mastodon,
The dinosaur, who left dried tokens   
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom   
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the...

                                                      of July
 
                   bagpipes    ...

i.  august 1619
 
arrived in a boat, named
and unnamed, twenty, pirated
 
away from a portuguese
slaver, traded for victuals.
 
drowned in this land of fresh,
volatile clearings and folk
 
with skin like melted
cowrie shells. soon shedding
 
servitude. soon reaping
talents sown on african soil.
 
after indenture, christians,
colonists. not english,...

Can be cracked or am that       you didn't
consider me or I thought so
recovering in a nap     You took the 4th
of July beers

   In the movie
she was Asian and playing an Asian
part   singing white on white in the white
room

      I want...

Lincoln?
He was a mystery in smoke and flags
Saying yes to the smoke, yes to the flags,
Yes to the paradoxes of democracy,
Yes to the hopes of government
Of the people by the people for the people,
No to debauchery of the public mind,
No...

O little-know facts—how Robinson attracts them!
 
Pilgrims rocked ashore here, before Plymouth Rock.
 
The word scrimshaw is of unknown origin.
 
The stock name of the archaic two-lane main road? Route 6A. Really
it’s Old King’s Highway.
 
Some facts are useless: the paper bag was invented...

All the angels of Tie Siding were on fire.
                                                            The famous sky was gone.

Presumably the mountains were still there, invisible in haze.
                                                                                        OK,
there was only one angel, but she was a torch in the wind, beside
the wind-ripped American flag the post...

Jeremiah Dickson was a true-blue American,
For he was a little boy who understood America, for he felt that he must
Think about everything; because that’s all there is to think about,   
Knowing immediately the intimacy of truth and comedy,   
Knowing intuitively how a...

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   
for the American...

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 fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
I don’t feel good don’t bother...

The tide’s a Bach cantata.
The beach is the swollen neck of Isaac.

The tide’s a lamentation of white opals.
The beach is free. The Coke machine rusted out.

Here is everything you’ll never need:

hemp-cords, curry-combs, jade and musk,   
a porcelain cup blown into the...

Freedom is a rocket,
isn’t it, bursting
orgasmically over
parkloads of hot
dog devouring
human beings
or into the cities
of our enemies
without whom we
would surely
kill ourselves
though they are
ourselves and
America I see now
is the soldier
who said I saw
something
burning on my
chest and tried
to brush it off with
my right...

It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down.

Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards
He lingers where his children...