TEXT FOR POEMS: THE AMERICAN FAMILY, CHURCH AND STATE, METHOD IS THE MESSAGE, HOMECOMING, THE LETTER (SCROLL DOWN TO FIND THESE POEMS)
THE AMERICAN FAMILY
By Jack Bowman 2000
My 80-year-old mother will
not buy her heart medicine because it cost more than she can pay with social
security.
She is America
My 80-year-old Father
“volunteers” to work at a home for the retarded for Two dollars and fifty cents
an hour.
He is America
My sister Stella,
A religious fanatic
Wants her gay son to get AIDS
so he will come back to Jesus
She is America
My brother James
Is in federal prison for bank
robbery.
He is America
Our Uncle James landed on
Omaha beach in 1944
He is America
His brother Ray deserted the
Army in 1952
To avoid the Korean War.
He is America
My cousin Kathryn as an infant was being eaten alive by rats and is partially blind
She is America.
My retarded cousin Herschel
developed rickets as an infant in Cincinnati because he didn’t get enough
nutrients.
He is America.
My son Liberty has a degree in Physics
but cannot get a good job in the capitalist rich state.
He is America.
I have seen the teenage
mother
That will not seek medical
attention
Because she has no money
She is America
I have seen an intelligent
young man
Working at McDonalds
Because he can’t afford
college.
He is America
I have seen the drunk at the
bar demanding his keys
To seek his death his death
his death
He is America
I have seen the black boy and
the white boy without enough food
In the capitalist rich state
They are America.
I have heard the cry of the
hungry baby
He is America
I have heard the cry of the
tearful mother
She is America
I have heard the cry of the
poet
He is America
I have heard my own cries for
the poor
Echo off blank bank walls
I am America
I have smelled the rotting
flesh of interstate death
I have smelled the food of
the poor
I have smelled the lead paint
of the shacks of the poor
I have smelled the stench of
Dayton Ohio
I am America
I have felt the hunger of the
poor
I have felt bullets rip
through my flesh
I have felt the powerful
punch of the aggressive fist.
I have felt the knives
separate my skin
I am America
I
I ……… seek the total, ……….
Complete ………… and absolute destruction of the capitalist state.
I …………. am ………….. America.
| This was created as a challenge poem about "Church and State". Our poetry group challenged each other when George W. Bush decided to merge the two after the election of 2000. These are the images I saw during those two weeks between our poetry reading. |
Some introduction to religion may be necessary here. Of course this introduction will not be necessary for the next generation since church and state is now merged.
So if you don’t know. The last book of the Christian Bible is Revelation and the last words spoken by Jesus are “Surely I come quickly”. The title of this piece is:
The last revelation at the White
house Christmas party
Washington, Patton, Bush and Bush
Jesus, Lincoln, Nixon and Ford
Christmas lights were staring the night.
They were eating Jesus’ umbilical cord for Christmas
They had it stuffed with psychedelic mushrooms
Star, Star, Star, Oh Starry night
Heroes with strange names appeared in the sky
Lenin, Guevara, and Mao Tse Tung.
Outside the green interstate trucks were on constant patrol.
To
collect the dead animals
To
grind them up into hamburger
To
feed them to the homeless
The
loud speaker blaring as the green trucks passed
“Get them in a day or we don’t get our pay”
There were little American flags stuck in the ground
Where each animal was collected.
A
constant line of green trucks
At
all the churches
At
the Salvation Army
At
Saint Vincent’s De Paul
The
homeless children unloading the trucks
Singing, “Halleluiah, praise Jesus” with each toss of the dead.
Inside the school there was a 98 pound red headed freckled freshman
In
a classroom full of jocks.
He
pulled out a 12 gauge and blew them away.
Splattering their brains on the Safe School poster wall.
To
the policemen in pink uniforms he gave this reason,
“Sometimes the wrinkles in the space time continuum
requires acts of non-professionalism.”
The
starry Christmas lights went out
And
the only light remaining in the now dark world
Was
from the open car doors in front of Dairy Mart
Where old people were setting inside their cars
Using the overhead light to scrap off their lottery tickets.
The
Christian youth groups
Were gathered and singing
The
theme song from the Beverly Hillbillies.
Jesus with his open hands raised to the darkness is yelling
“I
didn’t come quick enough”
“I
didn’t come quick enough”
And
the people were whispering to each other
“Jesus is slow”
“Jesus is slow”
The
image of death riding the devil with his jaws full of Jesus
Forever flickered
Like an old 8mm movie
Projected on the bedroom wall.
THE METHOD IS THE MESSAGE
Control, control......Reward......Give you candy in little kids school......Only. If you do as you are told....You are told "Learn to Count Money".....You are told "Learn Words - Capitalism, Pacifism"....Buy stuff, buy stuff, buy stuff"......First Candy, stickers and stars....Pavlov Dogs.....Later you will salivate....When the capitalist dangle products in front of you.....You....Just a pavlovian dog....Taught to salivate.....Conditioned to consume....By the control people....The people you loved....in little school.....You loved them because you needed them for survival......They used you, abused you for their survival.....Hear the bell......Salivating, Salivating.....Pavlovian Dog.....The method was the message.
THEY AND I, AT THE PIQUA HOMECOMING FOOTBALL GAME (14 OCTOBER 1994) by Jack Bowman
When they see the stars and stripes...I see a swastika
When they see the color guard dressed in green with yellow stripes...I see them dressed in black with two lightning bolts.
When they hear the crowd Indian warhoop...I hear Jim Jones encouraging his followers to drink.
When they see the man in tight pants - with long serpentine penis guarding the eggs...I see sterile glass balls and a hollow ceramic tube.
When they smell the popcorn...I smell the mustard gas of the Argonne Forest.
When they see the players rolling on the field...I see babies that never drank milk from their mothers breast.
When they hear the clash of two helmets...I hear bullets penetrating soft pliable babies skulls.
When they see the Quality Piqua school signs...I see Sparta carrying away the children at seven to condition them to die for their country.
When they hear the mother cheer her son on...I hear the Spartan mother-without tears - as she hands the shield to her son - say - "Return with it, or upon it"
When they see the word Piqua and the yardage marked on the field...I see Leuctra and 371 B.C.
When they hear the national anthem...I hear taps.
When they see a cheerleader do a cartwheel...I see a naked camp follower - with legs spread wide - inviting the sperm of tomorrows last battle.- Then douching with acid - terminating the genetic funneling of a million years.
Who are they?...They are the community leaders that sent the soldiers off to Sparta's last battle.
Who am I? ... I am the one the community leaders executed just before Sparta's last battle. - I am the one executed before every last battle. - I am the the one pleading - begging- and crying before every last battle.
What are their names?...Their names are mister, sir, doctor, officer and your honor.
What is my name? ... My name is known by the old women that have cried each night since the last war.- Old women that gave their son's milk from their breast - that cry for the football player son that played his last game. - Ask these old women that douched with alum. These old women with bitter shriveled vaginas. They will tell you my name.
THE LETTER
by Jack Bowman 2001 ©
Retirement to me does not mean nothing to do but the realization of the decisions I made in the past. That I made in my life. I now can, and do ask the question, "What if I had taken a different path? What would have happened if I had married someone else?"
I had always thought that the girls had left me. That I had always been the good guy and never betrayed another's love. But now I realize that I also had dumped those that loved me. My salvation comes when I realize that I always did it early in the relationship with only a couple dates. I think the reason we remember the ones that dumped us is that the hurt lingered. In ALL my cases the hurt lasted far longer than the relationship.
This poem is about a letter from Miss Gladys Singleton of Route 2, Orlando, Kentucky. It was Postmarked February 7th at 2 p.m. in 1968.
What if I had married Gladys?
Folded Letter
Letter of love she claimed forever true
She asked me to come see her one more time
That one kiss
So sweet
I still remember after thirty years
She wrote, "Jack Honey, I haven't forgotten you and never will"
She ask me to come. She ask me to write.
I never did.
I had too much fire in my soul
It called me far more than love
Far more than the remembrance of a kiss
Had I married her?
All the future adventures would be gone.
She was a real girl. Not fake like the many I later met.
She would have been content to live back in the hills
She did live back in the hills
Long rocky dirt road, not gravel, not paved.
We would have had children
I would have worked in the factories many miles away
I would have farmed the hilly rocky land
The land that had been named after her family.
The Singleton valley.
But then the adventure that beckoned would have never been.
I followed the call
of the fire to the end
I am much wiser because I followed that call
With Gladys I would have just been
Ordinary
Not in control of my destiny
I miss that world that might have been
Me and Gladys in the Singleton valley
It would have been simple
except
there is no simple in a capitalist state
the wealthy are always trying to take
And they would have never stopped
even for me and Gladys in the Singleton valley
There is no place that the good can hide
From the Power People
That I learned in my adventures
But I miss Gladys and the Singleton Valley
I miss the children that would have been.
I caress the letter
and think of the kiss.