And the price we pay.

American pride.
And the price we exact.

American pride
because we’re kinder than
the Nazis
the Ottomans
the British Empire even.

And we apologize for our errors
right our wrongs
start over again

Don’t we?

The rebels who have no causes
do no good.
The rebels with causes
spill the beans
fart the world
spit it out.

Who’ll take me home?
I’m thinking of a girl.
That’s all the further
I ever really get.

Who’ll stop my pain?
that’s all the more
my political aspirations
extend.

Who
loves
me?

And rubs me right.

That’s all the conversation
I ever come up with.

And it bores me.

So I ask for something deeper
from the forces that be
beyond the slosh and enclose
of some dark seawater
on the corner
of an old cement dock.

But I guess I’m lying again.
Got to stop lying all the time.
Fuck
fuck
fu

well

Jesus was a sailor
when he walked across the water

Jesus was a hero
when he turned a handful
of tired fish
into a feast
for the thousands.

Jesu was a king when
God called him one.

And now the friends and the followers
walk through the narrow tan salted passageways
brown crumpling bricks on all sides
and underfoot the smooth
gray worn hard cobblestones.

Who’s fault is it?
You think your son should be allowed
to travel
to see the wider world
which he’s anyway
sought
and taken the time
to fill out the paper work.

America
America
where next?
It would be better
for us
if it was
better for you.

But what’s better for you,
mighty ship of state?

You know I can’t leave what I’ve known
your people
your places
your ideas
your myths
and the sentiments that tear them down.

Come on
help me
help us
to really find
a newer world.

AMW