america.

in a recent literary discussion (ha) with shauna swinney, i decided to post my favorite reading from my previous literature class. however, it's a long poem. so...i suppose i'll pick my favorite parts. or do it in sections. or something profound like that.

America by Alenn Ginsberg

...America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands...
...America after all it is you and I who are perfect not the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument...

...America I used to be a communist when I was a kid and I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle Max after he came over from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again...

for the full poem...go here.
yes, this is my favorite. i'm not quite sure why. i'm really ok with america. and i really don't do drugs. and i really do say the lord's prayer.