fell through Kerouac’s backyard in American summertime
clotheslines snapping like the iron curtain
belts humming along with our fathers
up there
bright on the billboard with a Lucky
and a smile
with Vietnam came the hard autumn
and TV and rock&roll
we might not have got fooled again but
the skies stayed grey
to the brink of Nuclear Winter
and to substitute for our phony youth
we took on a phony naivete.
Autumn in America,
with doom and catastrophe
always
someplace else, far away
from where we grovel at the feet
of celebrity
and clog the information super highway,
the single greatest advent and benefit
to the village of humanity,
with nothing but our vanity.
a great man once said
“I detest history.”
and I agree but I’m including you
and telling you
I don’t believe in anything
this poem isn’t political
this brief rundown of American history
incomplete
but what do you want from me?
I just live here.
Going for the Throat 