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Goodbye America
Misha Firer |
Good-bye, America,
The one I have never really seen:
Idealistic, ideological, idiosyncratic, idiotic,
With skyscrapers falling into heaven above Manhattan,
And one hundred dollar bills dissipating in greedy palms,
Electrically polluted skies and yellow smog and endless freeways.
I have taken you into my heart and let myself be snatched into your nether hole.
Toiling in Brooklyn kitchen washing dishes with chloral water from Hudson,
Laboring in Delaware setting tents for the boring parties of the rich,
Working in Oakland, serving yuppies cappuccinos and triple lattes,
Slaving in Pennsylvania, washing Wal-Mart floors, choking on machine fumes.
Making love to Nadia, Heather, Jennifer, Maryellen, Maria
And others, whose names I can't remember.
Sleeping in Central Park and on a Greyhound bus heading for Las Vegas, Nevada
After being kicked out of a youth hostel in hip East Village
And then father's house in San Mateo, California
Getting high in Berkeley and drunk in Los Angeles,
Hungry on a LIRR train and a year later sated in a Beverly Hills mansion
Talking in Russian, Hebrew and accented English,
Making friends and ditching lovers,
Betrayed by women and salvaged by men
Mutilated by men and resurrected by women,
America,
Large and small, with cable television featuring three hundred channels
Redneck towns uprooted within a single night to watch NASCAR
Lurid, ludicrous, luscious, luxurious, lovelorn
I will never become your immigrant and
I will not miss you a bit
But forget
I never will.
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