American Poems

By Mike W. Archibald

Ive had a strange disassociation with the idea of home my whole life. I do admit to at times feel reluctant to being American. Although there are many more grand political issues I choose to dismiss, the main thing I am stuck on is the idea of Americana. The Archetype of America, the cowboy, the parade, the colors, the spirit, the flying fucking eagle. The idea of For Gods Sake dives into a deap romance for me. I may not know where exactly where I am from but there is something about that idea of an old Cadilac Fleetwood, or pork roll egg and cheese on the summer-shore boardwalk that I am in love with.

For Your Parade

Here I go again, daydreaming Mind in coach trains My old thoughts of youth, left Lone, wandering My name is America The Great Divide (here or there) Salt in lasting wounds of love & onward, rocking, shifting personals Bursting into a reincarnate----Crossed hearts dotting is and js My name is America

I Swim, You Preserve Life

All laid away, reborn in new Great glory sun! Sing your prophesy Away from harm we still reel onward Onward? I says Bang, bang Horse rail car Realists Onward! FOREVER At least that day & night, oceans pass through My name is America November, what I fall for Back to the beginning again Seasons rain and under snow Untouched dark lands Badlands Literatures hidden archetypes Don Quixotes heart as you say Give me a road left Abandoned Rectangular Islands on which to ride Start anew This New World....open hand to hold What I want to hold onto Yours Much later More facts understood Walking, talking, eating All along a single iron road My name is America

West Left blocked by a single endless fence One ventricle solitary, pumping & panting like a dog I am no wrangler, rambler or Cowboy Birds flap and the trestle rolls My name is America

I Swim, You Preserve Life

I, reborn an Angel in your Stone Church, breathes fertile with thoughts Arms of stone holding me Betwixt & Between heaven, and lost halls of Brooklyn Truth in being, but proclaiming denial! In the back of the Bibles here? Tsk tsk no in the structure called my life which Once smoke and mirrored magic Soft as sunset and strange clouds formed from udders Now with Some Gods hand, sticking through The world is a water farm, I swim My name is America You preserve life Gas lit saloons deliver oblivion The prairies of clouds Bodies nested &ours Hurtled through the night Onward still! The sun pushes us on Still on & on Indians all gone to Florida or Cuba Americans disappeared In the nowhere where crossroads flicker by Albeit inflated You are my car It with left over sun-type promises This world shrunken with unbought stuffed dogs One lone brakemans face lift in the corner of his steam train Not my fault he says My name is America

I was lost Found Closed up Windows if what we all dream Like it or not any longer I am a strange skeleton Who stole America

I Swim, You Preserve Life

Pound punching pound For. Old rotary phone Mr. Pound wont work Its midnight or close to it The operator has gone Lines are left Itss midnight or close to it The engine purs The horizon gray of grey, fogged Black worn out silhouettes Glazed with night pollution Mini metropolitan light pollution Its midnight or close to it I drove ever unimpeded I didnt notice mile markers I didnt notice coastal evacuation routes I didnt realize you were asleep Its midnight or close to it

I had bought this pack of cigarettes In Indiana To stay awake through the night All my windows down listening To the world in AM frequencies You might have been there or were Its midnight or close to it Native chants and evangelical preachers Local sports local news Dead air white noise dead air Its midnight or well past it How about this rest stop or this over pass I pulled over onto highway 6 Without realizing whod been here Just for gas and a rest Kerouac had been picked up here Iowa I was sure of it West of Davenport I was sure of it Its midnight or well past it

For. Mr. Pound

And now sitting outside your apartment A cigarette burns through on its own and I have a key But I am still driving home Well past midnight

There is class to a mid city size Your second tier capitals, America American Cities Americans! Relish in your private domes Dramatic Domestic Duomos with no department of defense Americans living in the county not city proper redistricting and redirecting

To A City

Theres a new sheriff He shook hands with the Governor once Out in our country road Pride is Pie to us Penultimate childish pride gloves and warm coco our largest export our local factory produces gleaming tin lunch boxes Architectures of ancient Greece Politically Socioeconomically Structurally