A New Year's poem for Oh, America

[DLnyc]

I started this poem in October 06, more than a year ago. Noticed it recently sitting in a notebook, languishing. Decided I better try to add a few lines and be done with it, before it sits around another year.

I hope some of you might like it, or at least none are offended.

Happy pagan lights festival, giving time of the year and any other thing you like to call it and, of course, merry new year!

Peace be with you all.

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A New Year's Poem (2007) for Oh, America


Winter walks down
From the soggy North
The old dynamo weakened
By endless wars;
The wind sighs weary,
His practiced weight
Licking, again, the wheat stubbles
Of the Great Midwest

My practiced pen
Recalls other seasons
Spent and scattered in their turn
To leave only this restless time,
Of dirty air,
Blowing over empty, patient fields

And somewhere far, far away, not here, not now,
Empires crumble
Leaving great carcasses of battle tanks
Drowning in the dry and thoughtless dunes
And masters of war
Terrified of time
Stare, despairing, at the stranger,
Aging in the mirror.

"Or is it here,
And is it now?"
Cry the winds
Scraping at the stubble.


Oh, America, leave off your ceaseless fear,
Death will not cheat you
Time will not fail to smile on your works,
As scorpions scurry through their sanded turrets
In the sharp desert afternoon.

Leave off your ceaseless growing and getting
The swelling of your might
Watch, a while, the sands shifting
Down the dunes of time

Oh, America, the nameless horror
That stalks the darkened hallways of your mind
Is, finally, your own hand, raised to strike
Itself

Oh, America, leave off spending blood
To avenge blood spent avenging blood
Spent avenging the avenging of a
Vengeance vent upon the
Spending of some blood

Oh, America, sit awhile and watch,
As the sharply slanted setting desert sun
Casts shadows down
The dunes of sliding time.

Put down, finally, the grotesque and massive Monster, Empire,
Strapped to your back, crushing you
Flat, like a spider, hard on the desert floor

Oh, America, escape, finally, the crushing weight
Crawl out from beneath the Monster, Empire,
And sit a while watching
As the desert evening sweeps the grateful shadows
Into the velvet desert night-womb. . .


Sleep with me, America, and dream
In the empty desert night
Of young love and peace;
Come with me, in our dream, to
Date palms over a moon-lit pool
Shared by creatures of breathless beauty
Watering in the cool desert night.

Drink with me, Oh, America, of the Wish for Peace
Of that bright silent vision ringing in the cool night air
That is Life becoming Life.

Drink and have solace,
For the walk ahead is long
And hard.

--DLnyc 12/29/07


(with strands likely gently lifted from Dylan, Wordsworth, Ginsberg, Khayam, Shelley and who knows whom-else)

edit: oops, fix year