virus history flickers
incurably
inside my heart
& you are with me Walt Whitman
in every blade of grass
you are with me
on Brooklyn Bridge
crossing over
& you are here now
Woody Guthrie
as your sun comes shining
in redwood forest
& I too wonder if this land
is still made for you & me
Harriett Tubbman
Margaret Sanger
St. Caesar Chavez
Malik El-Shabazz
Dr. King
Blake's mystic vision
Baudelaire's flowers of evil
all here
& we are with you Leonard Peltier
locked down in your wounded theatre
built upon the blood of the native dead
brick upon brick of law
stars & stripes
forever
you are here now
Abbie Hoffman & Mother Ginsberg
Rosa Parks
there is a seat for you
at the front of the freedom
train
show us the way
& what New Deal have we now?
what Great Society
conspires to steal the vote
& pimp our country
to the lowest
bidder?
I was always schooled that America
was a refuge for genius
I cannot tell a lie
a sanctuary for the arts
above all
a champion of
science &
reason
good time god
for everyone
w/in or
w/out
the genius
of the crippled
mind
the god of the bird
that dreams
of flight
the insane
worship
the predator dawn
& the peeling
knell of sunset
as any
reason
flies away
whistling in the
dark
America
five foot tall in your six foot dreams
invisible inside your ghetto conformity
& who will save you from yourself
America? where is your heaven
(you cannot shrug your shoulders
you have your hell in Iraq
& aborting democracy
isn't that murder?)
as you lamely lament your lost children
the avenging angel of childhood
all grown up
hammer high
"VENGEANCE IS MINE" tattooed
upon his Philistine forehead
your patriot child erect before you now
armed with the Promethean rage of atomic fire
& the binary thunder of Zeus
your progeny unmoved
by the crush of corporate lions
& the giddy citizens
who give themselves gladly to the
blood sport democracy
pulsing thru their arterial cable networks
(let freedom ring
America slobbers
feed the nonconformists
to the hungry fat cats)
revolution once
a flower in the barrel of a gun
a closed fist
an open mind
& we shall overcome
give peace a chance
the revolution is being televised
the revolution is being televised
the revolution is being televised
what you see
& what you
don't
the ghosts of war
rising from the killing fields
of Wall Street
of Gettysburg
(the ghost dancers of Wounded Knee)
Oklahoma
& Columbine
all rising like the phoenix of a bad acid nightmare
with the broke & broken babble of blind young soldiers
oiled by God the Destroyer
& the vengeful bark of hungry gun song
dipped in gold
somewhere between the
malignancy of thought we call
madness
& the retarded universe of the
innocent & the sane
we exist
angels weep
fools parade
the universe is weary
& in the suicide swamp
of eager apocalypse
I look out
(born again
as gravity
I cannot help
but fall
head over
heel
eternity's infinite kisses
to save me)
ah
sweet revolution
catch me
I am yours
the revolution is being televised
the revolution is being televised
the revolution is being televised
the gathering red clouds of revolt
descend like a ravenous locust upon the landscape
devouring waving wheat
& purple majesty
in its divine
disclosure
history screams back
from inside the gulag of hope
& speaks to the virgin suicides
like time unlived in the wake of too much is never
enough
& the pyrite promise of
heaven spent
beneath the shock & awe
of empire
America
you drank
& became
empty
the revolution is being televised
the revolution is being televised
the revolution is being televised
apocalypse rose
blooms in the thousand centuries
it takes to make a moment
there is no sweeter victory
© 2004 - S.A. Griffin