Poem by Adam Thielker

Photo by Cindy Williams



In America

In America, We’ve been taken down where we’re going to.
In America, you may sleep in your car.
In America, skies are not cloudy all day.
In America, there are roads you can drive in a straight line all night long.
In America, we think the war is a faraway place, visited only in dreams.
In America, we know nothing of ball lightning coming down the chimney.
In America, meteorites fall on Connecticut.
In America, twisted steel litters the roadside, seen only by hitchhikers.
In America, you can’t go home again, but you can’t stay here.
In America, the clouds are running dragons.
In America, there is no safety.
The safety is off.

In America, if it’s politically correct, it’s not art.
In America, the president doesn’t get the weather report.
In America, the absurd is cast in iron.
In America, the three ring circus is the opening act.
In America, cowboys get the blues.
In America, denial will not be denied.

In America, Johnny can’t read.
In America, Johnny got his gun.
In America, Johnny comes marching home .
Johnny be good, In America.
Go Johnny go, In America.
Little Johnny Fuckerfaster In America.
Here’s Johnny!

In America, you’ll get food to eat.
In America, the oysters were as big as babies.
In America, nothing is enough and everything is not enough.
In America, we’re the kind of folks that want
Three separate governments and a million churches.
In America, each winner stands on a pyramid of losers.

In America, we are dangerous spiders dangling on threads
held above the eternal fire by only the hand of God.
In America, belief is the opposite of knowledge.
In America, nobody has to vote.
In America, perfectly good is not as good as good.
In America, there are jails in the jails.
In America, we swipe our own credit cards.
In America, all the money is fake, and who cares?
                                                                       In God We Trust.

In America, you don’t need a hunting license (if you’ve got a an army).
In America, some hospitals are still open.
In America, we want our painkiller. There is no painkiller.
In America, the land is not free, and the brave are not home.

In America, don't quit your day job.
In America
In America I will live
In
America
In America.