America, a fool’s estate
where space and time evaporate
and all things ride the wind like smoke
in rings that dissipate and float
or rise like spirals to the sky,
or are inhaled, consumed, and die.
Satanic mills, where have you gone?
Your husks have been abandoned long
before my birth, the moss grew on,
that Yankee redbrick Parthenon.
And I would find lost walls of stone
within the woods I tread alone
foundations for a dream unbuilt
where trees grew warped from pond-side silt
to reach the canopies. The sun
(which shines not over everyone)
inspires such grotesque techniques
in seeds sown in conditions bleak
America, our cruel estate
where space and time eviscerate
and all things ride the wind, inspired
by symphonies of Icarian lyres.