big america
In America it’s go big or go home
You either wear a mask with passion
or seethe in anger
at the very idea
Anchors a weigh my boys
or is it anger’s a way?
You’re either staying or going
You’re a dirty rat
or a Yankee Doodle
Ask Mr. James Cagney never a finer dancer
Be like Cagney don’t cry on your
mother’s bosom,
Make your own way in the world
Even if you get sea-sick,
sick as an ugly dog
emptied out and upside down
In Big America
That happens all the time
virgil
The old man
lies on the bed,
a great-grandfather
I will be six soon
and it is quiet
in this room
as I chew the ends
on my hair
and wonder
why you have
a bag on your
stomach
You are in
a little white
house and
the sheets
on the bed
are white
and your skin
is pale and
the entire memory
is surrounded in white
There are phantoms
in here,
so I try to
listen for birds
but your presence
corrupts the bird-call,
a hard man at
the end of his
journey while I
am still
getting started
I have so much
childhood amnesia
yet this memory
like a pockmark
that I pick at
from time
to time
eighteenseventy.poetry.blog 