Cry, America
Weep upon your purple mountains majesty
I feel the sorrow of the streets
Every time I walk through this town
Yea, I've seen the grave of integrity
Sharing a cemetary plot with spirituality
The mourners are few
Nobody leaves flowers
Still I'm pained
Still I'm filled with melancholy
But the damage is done
Too late to turn back
It's all just a poingant reminder
Of how far convenience has advanced
In the hallowed halls
Of the shopping mall
Where tribute it paid
To the Consumer Gods
We see our messages
Scrawled across the bathroom stalls
Words that seem to shout
"This is the thanks I get
For having a heart!"
Somehow
It's fitting
So cry, America
Let the tears roll down the banks of the Mississippi
Maybe they'll see through all the bullshit
That you never saw
An entire generation
Raised on Prozac
And cultured on violence
A generation of broken homes
And silver spoons
Somehow we got stiffed with the burden
Resigned to the same fate
As everyone else
Chained to the arms of Capitalism
Dragging us down alongside
It didn't have to end like this!
And I see Love
Bleeding from open sores
And blisters
And singing Auld Lang Syne
While Bigotry conspires with the Evangelicals
How to keep the Devil in the White House
For yet another four years
Convincing the masses that Theocracy
Not Democracy
Will earn us Salvation
Cry, America
And if you get to Heaven before I do
Tell Burroughs and Ginsberg I'm sorry
For the damp and decaying nation
And tell Kerouac
That I wish we could've sat down
And conversed
And shared a cup of coffee
Feedback Read what other people have to say about this poem!
