America Again (after Ginsberg)

by MICHAEL CORRIGAN

America
One of your citizens is singing in the desert
A widower who lives with a noisy cat
Hear my song
America
This is alarming
What’s going on?
All my friends are sick or gone
America
Your economy is sinking
We are taking down the world with us
What can I do? Buy a new Ford?
America
The university is for sale
The Dean says retire now
Write that reminiscence of times past
Hoards of men and women camp in the parks and on beaches
A few workers build bridges to hide the homeless
The local porn shop offers a stimulus package
America
My church is the theatre
I search for the magical want ad:
Wanted, playwright, guaranteed 50 grand a year
My God is the pigeon-toed Jew from Duluth
Ask him what the matter is,
Oh to hear him talk
America
I’m a dreamer waiting on Stockholm
You’ve won the Nobel Prize
Royalties for six months: three dollars and thirteen cents
Social Security sees gaps in my work record
I’m a Celtic bohemian, I say, lucky to get this far
And too old for the marines
America
I have a lover in a parallel universe
The girl who won’t set me free
Is it a fantasy or a false memory?
Come on, you’ve all been here before
That lover you knew for a short while
Like the girl from the Red River shore
America
When will your cowboys read Ginsberg?
When will Walt Whitman get off that Brooklyn Ferry
To celebrate and sing again the body electric?
Where are the poets to replace those who lost hope or drowned?
We need all hands on deck
Uncle Walt will find a dark Irish captain
America
Anything is possible
Before Charon with his fiery eyes
Poles us across that dark river
America

Michael Corrigan Contemporaries
Edward Field
Fraser Sutherland
Billy Collins