America is Sell

I wrote this when I was in high school, 1974 or so, I'm not sure about its strength as a poem, but it's uncanny how true it remains.

America is Sell!

Convince. Persuade.

Free expression?

Free enterprise.

Words are want-ads.

Unrighteous screams demand righteousness!

Political impressiveness

The hard sell,

the soft sell,

the "oh well" apathetic 

voice of the people,

slapped silly by the flesh-eaters.

Where are her guts gone?

Who soiled sweet liberty?

Land of my advertise.

A land where believing died.

America is Frisco,

Disco, I love my Crisco.

Oil boils, corporate fingers,

eager for the crude.

I am in the mood for good

old-fashioned white, blue

and read the paper yesterday.

Seems the world may burn away.

(This land is their land. This land is their land.)

Nomenclature

Some things I like 

for the language of them:

Plant cell division

for xylem and phloem.

Catholicism for

extreme unction,

limbo, purgatory,

and Sister Mary Pious.

I could love a human

for vascular and cranium.

And though portent of trouble,

free radical begs affection,

like James Dean

with a cigarette.

It's why I'm a philatelist

so I can say that word.

First appeared in the Spring 2014 issue of the "The Tower Journal" online magazine.