american anthem like a mad preacher bent on saving humanity i worry for the soul of my nation this great miasma of translucent humans who walk in notions of splendor bent out of wild vines by men w/balls bigger than asia a land made of men who in another time & place felled great beast & one another with casual impunity wild men who rode the savage night without fear mindless to their ends found beneath rock boulders or the at the end of ropes swaying in a breeze the kick of mules & buffalo guns blazing in plains sawgrass blood painting the afternoon sky a brighter shade of pale i fear for my own soul here locked in mortal combat with desperation on ground i can't hold for long bleeding out my time in long rivulets of red minutes hours weeks years all the human juice flowing on behind some great dam beyond the canyon of my mind a colorado river of madness raging down my days youthful greenlight fading like trees on the foggy bank on a smiling canoe trip thru rapids i can't survive on a trip i couldn't stop even if i wanted when the time comes let me breach the falls like an iron man of old wailing over the cascade with fiery curses to a god i never invented in a time i didn't see in a land where nothing matters but perceptions of what was when the sod has grown back over dark holes & the sunlight climbs in columns to a heaven left far behind gone somewhere along those paths missed in the journey from there to here gone & finally forgotten