The Political Issue
Vol. 4 Issue 2

America
(For A.G.)
by Bruce Kramer

America I have something to say
Are you listening America?
I have walked your streets
and quite frankly I do not like what I see

Why did you spit on the bag lady America?
Why did you take my lunch money?
Why did you kill him 11.22.63?
Why did you throw Ben Smith out of your University for reading Trotsky?
Don't you think you owe him an explanation

You must be held accountable America.
I stand here pointing the uncrooked finger.

Don't you throw me into your democratic loop, America.
I will be heard.
This is not a game anymore.
The megaphone is in my hand
AND I INTEND TO USE IT.
Oh, will you sick the IRS on me now?
Will you build a freeway through my kitchen in the name of progress?
You can't have my two dollars and twenty-seven cents America.

I am not afraid of you
anymore.
Go 'head. Take your best shot.

Things these days strangely seem like Salem, Massachusetts.
It scares the Hell out of me.
You scare the Hell out of me, America.

I have backpacked through your woods, America.
I got news for you man.
The road less taken? There's a hooker on the corner, a McDonald's down the street and my car got
stolen when I pulled over to smell the roses.
America, why are you building your Tower of Babel but just renaming it the Information Superhighway. Didn't we learn the first time?

I have climbed your mountains, America.
Vermont 7.6.96 and I wish I hadn't come back to dance your dance of bullshit.
I enjoy sitting on your beaches in winter.
Why do you think that's the case America?
Is that when we can talk?
Why can't I walk the streets at night?
I live in suburbia on a street called Daisy Lane and I can't go out at night sometimes anymore. It sucks but I remember getting beat up by four guys with broomsticks and if you were me you wouldn't go out at night all the time either, America.

Where have your poets gone, America?
Have you made chimney sweepers out of Whitman's wild children?
Where are they and what have you done with them America?
I've been hoodwinked!
We've been bamboozled!
You have shanghaied the poets America!
Fess up!

Where is the healthy food for thought America?
I'm getting fat on all this intellectual junk food.
Too many scandals with a side dish of succulently roasted transvestites who have seven toed pigmy gay lovers who were abducted by aliens.
Next on AMERICA!

Why does my British friend call us "dirty Americans"?
Is there something you forgot to tell us America?
Come on now. Come clean. You can tell me.
The charade must end America.

I've witnessed your history America.
Why was the fence locked at Poe's grave?
Why is the arch at Valley Forge closed?
Why did you ban all those words but shudder when Das Feuher burned them?
Why is Chuck Manson still alive?
Why is Michael Jordan a hero?
Where are your REAL heroes?
Where are the cops and parents and teachers?
Don't parents mean anything anymore America?
So many fathers, but not enough dads.

America we have a problem
America? Come in America.

Racial equality?
Does that mean you equally fuck over both of us?
Let the cops who beat Rodney go but then let OJ walk?
I think those on the Trail Of Tears would like to talk to you about this.
I don't think they feel the beads and trinkets you gave them as compensation for their homes was enough
No, the small-pox infested blankets weren't enough either.

Oh this won't do, America.
You must redeem yourself.

I saw you come over the mountains with a sack full of God over your shoulder,
you kicked down my door
beat me over the head
and ran over my cat on your way out.
"God Bless America"?
Did you write that song yourself? You egotistical bastard!

We complained that the Japanese were buying you up America.
Stockpiling you.
Don't those Japs know that the White European Male was worked long and hard to take everything around here and it would be greatly appreciated if they don't try to take that which has already been taken?
Are you to be bought and sold like a commodity?
A crop not a nation?
Like you have done with so many of your people before?

Why owns you now America?
A biumverant of dictatorship:
Bill Gates and Disney?
"Stay tuned after the Nike Coca-Cola Classic Half-time for the Valu-Jet Continental Cruises Post Game report followed by the Bud Bowl XXVI and the Fruit of the Loom 6:00 news"

3.28.96 I got news for you America.
The liberty bell ain't the only crack in Philadelphia anymore.

If you don't start putting more into this relationship, America, I'm outta here. I cannot promise you I will be back if I go either.
Do you care?

This is urgent.
I am not kidding.
Do something.
Are you fucking listening to me?
We are passing judgment on our own existence and you sit entrenched in sloth.

Is there an absolution to all of this
there is never an absolution
there is never an absolution
there is never an absolution
there is never an absolution
there is never an absolution
there is never an absolution

America,
Come in America.


Please come in.