America

The shuddering waft deploys its stay

Not upon the fifth of May

Not upon the eighth of June

From morning's burn to afternoon

A winded horse froths and stomps

In better hills and undead swamps

And after many seasoned hands

Have jettisoned the cult of man's

Wicked want and cruel jewels

Shifty truths and unbound rules,

Monstrous reports in crackled tones

Echo hard on empty thrones

From the pinnacle of okay so

On down the road of I don't know

An entrenched brow of more or less

Is unfurling ever over the West

My wonderment is hearty still

A testament of wonton will

And surrender to endowment plus

The engine that drives all of us

'Cross hurting rows of desperate clasps:

An upright gaze despite the gasps

I bay and shout til tattered rasps

Escape the maw of all my pasts:

America, despite your flaws

Despite needy minds and seeming walls

Of mystic, gracious nonconstraint

You're my wild eyed knit, O holy haint