I HEAR AMERICA SINGING THE BLUES

I hear America singing the blues, sweet surrender never sounded so profound.

From beyond the alley-ways and across the yield-less, wheat-less fields,

Within the once-great hulks of industry, that now stand like rusted follies on a cracked and broken land,

America sings the blues.
And for sure her sweet surrender never sounded so unbound.

As cracked lips release the cracking soul, we huddle in corners and cover our ears.

So many then, we never realised greed had undone so many.

And on the quarry’s lip, a quarryman takes a bitter sip,
And dangles his dried, caked boots into the yawning void.

He hears America singing the blues,
And his own meek surrender rises wearily to join the song.

And somewhere deep within a liquor-mist, woman hunched across the counter asks:
Was she a dream, then, this great and saintly dame?
Or was she like the Gods of old, who were, in turn given life,
By our faith and fearless dreaming?

The waitress shrugs and fills her coffee cup:

Dream no more, she whispers, for all your Gods are dead.

And America sings the blues,
Sweet surrender never sounded so profound.
She is fading now, and the torch is gently dimming,
And the jackals on their haunches,
Await the final kill.

And in her fading, she scatters forth a hundred thousand bursting buds,
Which are carried forth upon the wind.
In time they will seed the fertile hearts and minds,
And new and greater gods will be borne,
Not upon plinths or pulpits,
But within the very souls of man.

America sings the blues,
And our sweet salvation never sounded so profound.