Loved this poem.  Loved the imagery.  Loved how the physical writing looked on the page.  Loved the content.

THE NEWER AND MORE IMPROVED AMERICA

It’s 12:30 AM in the millennium. 

Do you know where your new and improved America is?

Well I do, and let me tell ya, she’s got a lot more

going for her than maybe you think she does.  I know

‘cause I saw her squattin’ in the Coliseum parking

lot, huddled under a blanket in the rain, with a

Jaeger in one hand and a cardboard sign in the other

lookin’ for the kindy kind lift to the Oregon Country

Fair in any non-petroleum combustible vehicle

available, and singing ever so gently about how she

needed a miracle.

The newer and more improved America just hit menopause

and isn’t really that pleased with cold future

prospects so prospecting must not stop under any

circumstance and if that means delusional fantasies of

turning third world dictatorships into a flowering

Oasis of democracy than what need do we have of such

things here so long as we can live the fantasy out in

front of our highly resolved, highly pixilated pupils?

The newer and more unproved America used to sell

space, used to sell time; why, he even used to sell

space time continuum but with the pink slip moving

ever Eastward toward the once and future Celestial

Empire, he only re-rents the time now. So this newer

and more removed America has got to learn to be one

leathery bitch, since the industry of franchising

Wal-Mart in Tehran or Baghdad isn’t playing out so

well.

So make no mistake about it, the newer and more

reproved America will someday find itself playing

second fiddle to the newer and more improved Asia, as

soon as the yen for slave labor can figure out a

trendier way to consummate its perfect union.

If the newer and more improved America can be a sport

about it, he can still work the club circuit with Old

Europe and Russia, cut movie deals with the Republic

of California and sign book deals with the newer and

more improved Manhattan. He can retire away to a

hipster rave spa with Colonial Britain, and the Roman

Empire, who will be sure to tell him to stop crying

like a little bitch about the heathens and mongrels.

Naturally, if the newer and more improved America gets

really lucky, he’ll find his way to the back VIP room

where Greece has already got the orgy going between

Egypt and Atlantis.  The Ming Dynasty had to leave

quite suddenly…something about some old scores.

Yet of the newer and more in-excused America still

gets caught trying to run the market on the garbage

cans around the periphery, like a hooker whose made

the slide from the Tenderknob to Capp and dreams of

running her own crew just as soon as she finds some

bitches who are worth a shit. The newer and more

improved bitches in South America, with good and fine benefactors to the East, may quickly tire of a manifest destiny that never seems to want to go away. I’d hate to be around when the collapse of those crisp, green, serial numbered party invitations go out of style and wind up causing World War III in our own backyard. It might be a good idea to duck when every target in sight starts getting iced; it might be a good idea to stock up on a few vitals items and some gunpowder of your own when history’s most bloated, corpulent, mercantile brain chip begins hemorrhaging on its own karmic cyanide.

BUT MAYBE, MAYBE the newer and more improved America

can roll with the times; leave behind the Shady Arms

mobile homestead and create a whole new Velveteen

Revolution, each citizen doomed to a shorter existence

but a hell of a lot better time in it.  ‘Cause ain’t

the newer and more improved America been squatting in

the Coliseum parking lot, huddled under a blanket in

the rain, with lazy dreams and silly ideas powering

the whole party into a therapeutic community of

recovery and still crying out:

We know

We know

We know

We are:

The wide with hope

The wide with dope

And the wide with cope

We too are

This power always flowing

From East to West

‘Cause make no mistake jack

What happens in Dubai

Stays in Dubai

And don’t think this red

this white

this blue

And these stars and fucking stripes which themselves

are a hymn to mass destruction

            Don’t have a penthouse waiting for them in New Vegas

            Beyond the reach

of the vengeance

            of a crumbling empire

We too

You and I are

The newer and more improved America.

Last update : 24-03-2008 08:16

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