AMERICA
by Douglas J Harding
America I used to think I am nothing
You have taught me I am everything
America I read The Gulag Archipelago by
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
And I thought of you
In all your blood and glory
America how can you be free
When you keep so many prisoners?
America what did you do to the Black Panthers and Fred Hampton?
Fred was only a kid
America where are all the Black Panthers of today?
All the Fred Hamptons
America three dollars and eighty-seven cents per gallon
July 7, 2023
I do not know what is wrong with me if anything
The way you mean Wrong
I know I cannot be like this forever
I promise I will never stop protesting
America when will we have Peace?
Fuck the war in Ukraine
And all the others, too
Including those which will come after this
And they will come
America I refuse to hate the Russians and the Chinese
And I am not sorry
America one of your cluster bombs in Yemen
Killed 21 children and 14 women
And how many men
America 270 million cluster bombs
In Laos alone
One B-52 bombing mission
Every eight minutes for nine years straight
50 years later and these bombs still
Explode on children
As you knew they would do
America your president won the Nobel Peace Prize
While keeping a Kill List
America I used to think war criminals could not win The Nobel Peace Prize
You have taught me I am wrong
You have taught me all there is
To be learned from war criminals
Their crimes
America does everything here seem OK
To you? Do not lie
I know you are lying
America I am not lost
I do not want to talk today
I will not write until I am ready to write
America I know this ain’t Heaven
No matter what you say to me
America when will the sun rise?
I owe you nothing
America look at me now
Knowing the sun will rise
America are you not proud of me
For all I have learned?
Watching my faint reflection disappear before me
Only to see myself appear again
Some version of me
Some phase I am in
Ever-flowing with the motion of each wave
Building up like magic
Falling over forward and crashing into earth
Crashing into self
Crashing into all this
America crashing into me
America are you worthy of endless wealth?
And how could you be certain?
America tens of thousands of homeless
By choice
Your choice, not theirs
America half-a-million Iraqis or more
And still you celebrate
Every innocent Syrian
Every Palestinian, too
America you are so proud of your evil
America what is the difference
In burning books and banning them?
America countless deaths
For being too poor to pay for good health
America when will you make medicine free for everyone?
America I know all the secrets
And I know you think you do, too
But you do not
For you, this is impossible
America we are burning to death
Aren’t we?
America I will not forget last year
2022
Land grabbers igniting wildfires in the Amazon every day for months
America I will remember this despite you
America I will remember
Countless Google searches
Countless advertisements
For the Amazon Fire Stick to
Browse countless films
America everything I know now
I know despite you
I know despite Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg
America the kids destroying art
At The Louvre in Paris
The kids destroying art elsewhere
I am on the kids’ side
The artists’ side
The kids and the artists have all my support
Wholeheartedly
And I want the kids to know so here it is
The answers, if there are answers, are with the Youth
If there are no answers the kids will make them
America you are fucking killing me
America there is no Justice here and there never will be
America please call me crazy
You cannot hurt me how you need to
I killed my ego when I was 21
And I had everything
And I was the best poet in the world
And I felt nothing
America you nearly killed me
All those pain pills you gave me
I took all of them
When I trusted you
America I will never trust you again
America no one trusts you
I do not know why or how I survived this long
And many others did not
I can only make up for so much lost time
America you have driven loved ones to suicide
I never met my father’s father
My grandfather
I still miss my cousin Tyler more than anything
My friend Cameron
All the others, too
America I have changed my mind
I want free cognitive behavioral therapy for everyone
I want river days in summer
And spontaneous trips to Pittsburgh for the Hell of it
I want evening cookouts with family and friends
With animals, too
Even on holidays we do not believe in
America my mother grew up holding fireflies between her fingers
Pretending they were diamond rings
My sister and I grew up catching lightning bugs with scarred hands
Placing them temporarily
In Mason jars from papaw’s cellar
To show to mother before letting go
Blowing wishes with dandelions
My sister and me
I still tell my mother every day I love her
I tell everyone I know
How fortunate I am
To have an angel for a sister
America most our wishes never came true
Because of you
I could have spent a lifetime writing about fireflies and honeysuckles and blanket flowers and the smell of coffee in the morning
Before father leaves for work
The small kicks and cheap thrills
The brief moments of purity
The simple romance of it all
America you stole this life from me
Stole this life from my sister
But we know how to pretend
America synonymous with stolen life
With stolen time
Your one true specialty
America I am not Acting My Age
I am being careful
America let us celebrate while we can
This ain’t Heaven but this is all we got
America there was never enough for me
And I know there never will be
As long as I am here
America I am always here
I own nothing
I need nothing
I have everything
This is all mine
This is all too much for me
America you made me want to be a saint
I know I will never be a saint
Can we please go elsewhere now?
Is this a sick joke or are you fucking with me?
Please do not make this harder than it needs to be
America I am obsessive and impulsive and weird
It Never Gets Weird Enough For Me
America this is our world, not yours
And the leaves will begin to fall sooner than we think
America I have not checked social media in 367 days
My iPhone says my screen time is down 93% this week
America are you not impressed with me?
America please do not increase the Social Security retirement age
If you do I will cry for my family
If you do I will cry for my friends
If you do I will cry
If you do
America my father is my Protector and my best friend
And he will be 62 in September
America I will be 25 and I want a revolution
More than I have ever wanted anything
America I have studied your history
And the rest of it, too
America the communists are right again
And they know it, too
America please end the War on Drugs
Our friend Paul OD’ed last week
My friend [redacted] relapsed yesterday and [redacted] just got outta rehab
The boys from back home are still stuck on the shit
America tomorrow we will plant a tree in Paul’s honor
And all the others, too
America I found the real artists
And they want you dead
America we are never going to stop
Honoring life and writing poems and singing songs and dancing together
And crying when we feel like crying
America I will never do something because you told me to do it
I still drive back to Sissonville every chance I get
And to Huntington, too
The troubles are worth it each time because I have the best reasons
The psychiatrist at Marshall University said
I should probably sober up at all costs
America such costs never mattered much to me
Everything I care about is free
Comes freely
Goes freely
America I know I will die
10 or 15 years too young
At least
10 or 15 years too young
If I am lucky
10 or 15 years too young
Because I was born poor
Because I was born here
America I know this ain’t fair
I know I will never be rich
I do not want to be rich
America I do not want your money
I hate your money more than I have ever hated anything else
America I will pray to my own god
Not yours
America I do not smoke your dope
No more
My family doctor says it hurts my heart
America all this hurts my heart
Some days I still feel that familiar tightness in my chest
Some days I feel nothing at all
My family doctor’s name is Jill
Jill says I have arrhythmia but I should be OK for now
It just means I am not normal
And we already knew that
Didn’t we?
I do not like when Jill fakes a smile to me
Please look into my eyes when you smile at me
America I have not slept in days again
I refuse to be numbed
On any terms except my own
America do you hear me?
I know you do not believe in me whatever that means
Unless I am lying to you
Lying for you
America I have not lied to you since I was 15
And I never considered lying for you
And I never will
America you say you listen
When someone’s got somethin’ to say
But I know you like I know myself
And you do not listen at all
America you should have killed what is left of me by now
America I am becoming your worst mistake
And there are more of me
We are not an accident
America I feel acid rain falling down on me
I am having epiphanies
I am afraid to leave West Virginia for good
Or maybe I am not afraid
But honest
America I will never leave West Virginia for good
One day I will be in Saint Petersburg or Shanghai or Havana or Caracas or Sao Paulo or La Paz or Phnom Penh or Hanoi or Gondar or elsewhere
Knowing all this is temporary
Even you
America I am asking you
Are you going to let Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
Control your life?
Are you going to let Wall Street, the banks, the corporations
Steal everything
Even though it all belongs to you?
America I am the artist you created
I am the worst junkie of them all
And I am proud of it
I go to the library and all the local shops daily because I want to
America we are becoming beautiful
The same way
Oppression becomes liberation
Over time
Seemingly endlessly and then all at once
America when your time comes
I will be there
America I am here
Already
And I know nothing of patience
I try not to think too much about the bigger questions
America are you serious? I do not know
America I am you
Something is deeply Wrong with us
We are talking to ourselves again
I know you are not listening
Sent from my iPhone
Inspired by Allen Ginsberg’s “America,” 1956
