AMERICA UN BEAUTIFUL
------- -- ---------

O beautiful for spacious lies,
For anger waves by plane,
For purple muted madnesses
Above diluted pains!
America! America!
God shred our liberties
To pound the crude with packaged food
And keep on mining seas!

O pitiful with injured feet
And mind of endless stress
A hollow, scary freedom beat
Into a hopelessness!
Economy! Economy!
God take mine every cent,
And bill my soul with self-control,
My liberty unspent!

O critical of heroes proved
In manufactured strife.
Who more than self their money loved
And torture more than life!
Mass media! Mass media!
May God thy gold increase
Till all the cash is private stash
Our dollars our release

O spectacle of patriot dream
That grows behind the bars
Thine ever larger prisons gleam
interned with human scars!
Deliria! Deliria!
God smite the face i see
Confuse and steer with endless fear
Broadcast it on teevee 

O principals of yore ignored
To enter into strife
Not once but twice,
Invading lands
Destroying precious life
Hysteria! Hysteria!
God damn the other ones
Our selfish gain a bloody stain
Our banner number one!


# john saylor, 2004 july
# after ferlinghetti's 'loud prayer'