"What is most curious about America is that no matter what you say about it...
it is always true." O.W.
do you remember how you leapt...
where no profane foot has ever set but I
will remember this hour
till I die:

"Those people have taken advantage of us..."
and the rest of us stood naked in the rain,
a neat line waiting,
not saying anything,

but he barked from an ignorant angry throat,
"Those people have taken advantage;"

Did he speak for himself or for
the rest of the sun bronzed giants?
Portraits of history made stone
pillars to butress lesser acomplishments.

It was want, whose name alone was vulgarity.

rats leave the sinking ship but we...
we didn't leave, so the ship didn't sink,
and that's madness,

-or- This is How We Learned to Walk on the Moon.I have more zest than a boat pushing the sea aside, because it pushes it evenly.
I enjoy spasmodically.
As if the sun would be put out and be born again.
For this is worth getting addicted.
To be able to be dragged out,
to be whipped as a kind of Christ.
But engineers who made the paw to the bridge, the girders,
don’t remain in history.
They lack spasmodicality.
If my car would be thrown from the bridge over Loire,
or at least would be finely shaken,
I’d remember it.
The hand’s move is always the first one.
And the opening of your little mouth:
yours, yours, yours, is always the first thing, no matter the age.

I, too, sing America. They send me to eat in the kitchen...

when company comes,

but I laugh,
and eat well,

and grow strong.

Tomorrow, I'll be at that table...

when company comes.

And nobody'll dare say to me,

"Eat in the kitchen," then.

Besides, they'll see how beautiful I am and be ashamed--

I, too, am America.