America, America,
I have tried to give you up.
America, this is not a love letter.
How did it happen, America?
Where did it start?
Was it the Kent that Mark Ramsey
smoked in the house on Westgarth Street?
Was it the Drum that David Hagan
rolled with the dope
in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, 1969?
Was it Vietnam?
Was it Korea?
Was it the Second World War?
America, America,
I have quit you
so many times it seems easy.
It is only the not smoking that is hard.
Coming home after a hard day
dealing with history, your tidal wash,
I find you waiting
in a gold pack by the wine-glass
and smoke, and smoke
while your inanity rolls on in the other room,
�Law and Order�, �West Wing�, �Criminal Intent�,
as if there were nothing other than you
and your glib solutions, your music, your serial murder.
America, America,
you are rattling your sabres once again;
our politicians are scuttling about you
like chickens waiting to be fed.
You have even caught our sad Prime Minister,
the tenth in a row.
The whole country
follows you like a callow dog.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Kosovo,
is there no end to your hunger, your divinity?
O America, my black consolation,
something to reach for
when thought is intolerable,
I have been drawing you
into my lungs for thirty years now,
lungs, stomach, cranium, heart,
everything black with the tar of you,
your �saturation bombings�, your �collateral damage�.
You are killing my friends, my lovers, my children,
even our non-believers
are dying from passive love of you.
You have yellowed my fingers,
my clothes stink of you,
sometimes I think you have taught me
everything I know.
America, America,
please stop. I
am addicted, America.
I love you. I
am dying. Please
don�t go away.