[Newspoetry] Ginsburg's America

[William Gillespie]

This poem Mike found in the Indy Media Center is a rewrite of "America" by
Allen Ginsburg, a poem worthy of the newspoetry list:

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 me. 
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind. 
America when will you be angelic? 
When will you take off your clothes? 
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears? 
America when will you send your eggs to India? 
I'm sick of your insane demands. 
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I 
need with my good looks? 
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not 
the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint. 
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back 
it's sinister. 
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical 
joke? 
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession. 
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling. 
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday
somebody goes on trial for murder. 
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid 
I'm not sorry. 
I smoke marijuana every chance I get. 
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses 
in the closet. 
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid. 
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble. 
You should have seen me reading Marx. 
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right. 
I won't say the Lord's Prayer. 
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations. 
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle 
Max after he came over from Russia.
I'm addressing you. 
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by 
Time Magazine? 
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week. 
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner 
candystore. 
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library. 
It's always telling me about responsibility. Business- 
men are serious. Movie producers are serious. 
Everybody's serious but me. 
It occurs to me that I am America. 
I am talking to myself again. 
Asia is rising against me. 
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of 
marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable 
private literature that goes 1400 miles an hour 
and twenty-five-thousand mental institutions. 
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of 
underprivileged who live in my flowerpots 
under the light of five hundred suns. 
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers
is the next to go. 
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that 
I'm a Catholic. 
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly 
mood? 
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as 
individual as his automobiles more so they're
all different sexes. 
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500
down on your old strophe 
America free Tom Mooney 
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die 
America I am the Scottsboro boys. 
America when I was seven momma took me to Com- 
munist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a 
handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the 
speeches were free everybody was angelic and 
sentimental about the workers it was all so sin- 
cere you have no idea what a good thing the 
party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand 
old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me 
cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody 
must have been a spy. 
America you don't really want to go to war. 
America it's them bad Russians. 
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. 
And them Russians. 
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power 
mad. She wants to take our cars from out our 
garages. 
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers' 
Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia. 
Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta tions.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read. 
Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us 
all work sixteen hours a day. Help. 
America this is quite serious. 
America this is the impression I get from looking in 
the television set. 
America is this correct? 
I'd better get right down to the job. 
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes
in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and 
psychopathic anyway. 
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel. 
Allen Ginsberg, Berkeley, January 17, 1956 




          w w w .
          w o r d
          w o r k  
          . o r g

On Tue, 15 Aug 2000, Mike Lehman wrote:

> Looks like Newspoetry to me. There's an e-mail address, so why not ask
> permission to put it up?
> 
> >From the LA Indy Media site:
> 
> My America 
>                     by Coleman 12:48pm Tue Aug 15 '00 
>                     p0et2 at home.com 
> 
> A poem to be read in the streets- loudly! Because they just don't want
> to listen. 
> 
>                      My America 
> America here is another “queer shoulder against the wheel” 
> America, November 30th 1999 and you still don’t give a fuck about what
> your poets
>                      are saying be they prophet or otherwise. 
> It’s morning... 
> I’m tired and hungry... 
> America your eyes are bloodshot sunrise pink. 
> America you think you’re a situation comedy. 
> I’m not laughing anymore. 
> You have the applause sign illuminated 24 hours a day. 
> America aren’t your hands sore? 
> My hands are sore. 
> You see, I’ve got 2 jobs because you’ll never pay me for being brilliant
> or sexy. 
> I’ve developed this rash because your driving me crazy. 
> America I’m sure I’m not the only one with this problem. 
> I’ve got an itch to scratch. 
> I sat down with every intention of being angry obssesive paranoid craze
> brained
>                      sinister lunatic and I might as well be up front
> with it. 
> America are you being paranoid or is it just me? 
> Your paranoia will be your demise. 
> I’m a bit hung over, I’ll try to get to the point. 
> You make me spend good money on legal liquor because you are making good
>                      money on illegal marijuana. 
> 4 out of 10 wetsern states agree that marajuana is a good thing. 
> America don’t be so uptight. 
> Stop breathing down my neck already. 
> America when will you abolish the DEA? 
> I’m sick of the DEA. 
> The DEA and ATF. 
> ATF and FBI and CIA. 
> The IRS. 
> Acch! I’m chocking on your acronyms. 
> The USDA would not pay for the black farmers grain. 
> The FDA will not approve life saving drugs. 
> America when will you learn that the alphabet and beurocracy do not mix? 
> These are just casual observations. 
> I’m through with casual observation. 
> I’ll never forgive you for learning the word nigger. 
> I’ll never forgive you for the death of Martin Luther King, 
> And John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy and the Chicago police riots and
> the
> Rodney King riots and the over 4000 young Americans that died in
> Southeast Asia. 
> Not to mention state mental hospitals. 
> Not to mention Japanese internment camps. 
> Not to mention slavery. 
> Not to mention Hiroshima. 
> America I grew up with this hisory on my shoulders. 
> My back hurts. 
> Sometimes I just want to go live up in the mountains naked and bearded
> and forget
>                      that Manifest Destiny ever happend. 
> By the way America fuck you on behalf of my native anscestors. 
> I’m only 24 I was a cynic before I was thirteen. 
> You should have seen me reading Henry Miller. 
> I have nothing to be sentimental about. 
> I grew up on joint custody television and spaghetti o’s. 
> Sure I’m bitter but what do you care? 
> America you have forgotten your body. 
> I live amidst it’s womans hips and when drapped in fog your navel is
> truely a
>                      marvelous sight.
> I’ve found myself driving through your deep moist sex on some secret
> night on some 		secret southern road and I roll down the window and gasp
> for your
> luscious breath hanging in the pines. 
> You have no idea. 
> America when will you be nudist vegetarian hippie love child? 
> When will you start meditating? 
> When will your politicians be required to read Allen Ginsberg? 
> When will you adopt a multi party system? 
> Yoiur party line votes are to much for me? 
> America a liberal liar is no different than a conservative liar. 
> How do you think Lady Hillary feels? 
> Why do you love your hypocrites? 
> I’m a hypocrite do you love me? 
> I think I’ll run for president, after all I like a good cigar. 
> Lets not forget about blow jobs. 
> America let he who is without sin cast the first stone. 
> I’m tired of your selfishness. 
> What will it take to make you stop wasting your grain? 
> I hope you choke on your nuclear waste. 
> I don’t mean to be harsh. 
> I’m a happy person at heart. 
> America why are your airwaves full of the tracedy of celebrity and the
> celebrity of
>                      tragedy? 
> I never said the pledge of allegiance in school like the good boys and
> girls, I 		don’t mind admitting it. 
> I belive in karma I’m not sorry. 
> I remember Ronald Reagan though he can’t remember me. 
> I remember MX missles and mutually assured destruction. 
> I remeber generic food recession Iran Contra Olie North. 
> Oil fires in the gulf smart bombs through open windows. 
> America when will there be a generation that does not know war? 
> Shut up America you talk to much. 
> Jerry Springer- Blah Blah Blah 
> Montell Williams- Blah Blah Blah 
> Oh-po-rah- Blah Blah Blah 
> NPR- Blah Blah Blah 
> CNN- Blah Blah Blah Blah BLah Blah Blaaaaaaaaaaah 
> ‘Merica! I’m tired of your death! 
> Do you insist on getting into the van with Doc Kavorkian? 
> The anarchists are rising against you. 
> I’m afraid ther’s going to be violence. 
> When are you going to stop selling your weapons to suicidal third world
> nations? 
> When will your millitary industry finally collapse? 
> Don’t come crying to me when the millenium bites you in the ass. 
> I’m not panicking though I occasionally break out in a cold sweat. 
> America I’m doing the best with what I’ve got- Bad eyes bad teeth bi
> polar 		dissorderirrational tendancies bi sexual urges. 
> America I really want to make our relationship work. 
> I don’t think it’s time to start seeing other people. 
> I wan’t to be able to say “I LOVE YOU” and mean it.
> 
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