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One Nation Under God
Puritans scattered on the flood plain
White hate among the sun belt poor
Spiralling into the mongrel mix
America shut her heavy door
Chicago steaming on the Great Lakes
Los Angeles spreading by the sea
Aryans lighting up a Georgia cross
Sing songs of faith and liberty
Navaho drumming in a headdress
Landlocked by the legalese
Wall street pumping up a Texas crude
Black kids pick cotton on their knees
Pittsburgh steel to the Midwest
Baseball diamonds in the rough
Communist panic ‘cause the red press
Says forty cents a day ain’t enough
Kansas a diggin’ in a coal seam
They say old Dooley’s gonna hang
Toothless picking on a six string
Drawling on a gospel twang
Eastman, Edison and Tesla
Had New York humming in the night
Working overtime on production lines
Three shifts under artificial light
Boy scouts boozing in the basement
Clansmen chanting under sheets
Boxcars banging in the switchyard
Tommy guns rattle in the street
Mississippi River on a jazz high
Flapper sitting backward in a chair
Deep south standing in a bread line
Washington stayed away from there
[Feb 28, 2005]
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The
Poetry of Daniel Harrison