What I recall of the Sixties is my toys and my terror
Vietnam on the news all the time
Spaceships on the news all the time 
Protests on the news all the time
Drugs on the news all the time
I had a lot of guns to play with

What I recall of the Seventies is my drugs and my terror
Electric guitars in my ears all the time
Blurs and bursts and trails in my eyes all the time
First grasp of the news in poems all the time
First surges and rages of sex all the time
I had a smeared streak of joy to play with

What I recall of the Eighties?  Terrible, terrible
Marriage and working and crazy and drink
I want no Eighties in my head all the time
I want no Ronnie, no Nancy, no guns, no roses
No reason at all to have lived through that
No reason at all to recall

What I recall of the Nineties and since
is the continuing terror of how it all feels like the present
Cannot distinguish much of now from then
It’s a short walk back to Kurt’s wounded head from here
It’s a short walk back to New York’s wounded heart from here
It’s a short walk back to the shock of war and awe from here
I feel like someone stuck me with a bill
Stuck me with a bill for all this time
I keep walking forward and away but
It never disappears

I don’t care how I may die
Don’t care if it’s from gun or blade or germ
Don’t suffer from the madness of believing in immortality
Don’t want it to happen too soon
But I know it will happen and accept it

I wish you could see it as I do
Wave of the star enveloping you, sick as you are
Wave of the earth encompassing you, wounded as you are
Wave of the wind embracing you, struck down as you are
The next instant it must be — not like this
All I want to know about that moment I cannot know in life

I sit here speaking of death with intense fingers tapping
Oh the damn notion of having to wait
You wait as you will
but I will be calm and resigned to it
Will call for it to be delivered unto me

How we die is trivia
Every death I see now is trivial
Every individual an inconsequential body gone
Except as wave of earthquake to those who love them
I am the broken acolyte of continuance
Death ate me out a long time ago

So neither do I care how any of us live
Live and let live is here practiced
as apathy not compassion
Does it look the same when it’s not about love
but instead about disinterest

AMERICA is the hall of just in time history
AMERICA is the holler the chorus the cadence
AMERICA is the fear of the gun in the hand of —
what is it today anyway
Indian over cowboy
Prisoner over soldier
Peon over boss 

Vigilante songs ring in the heart
of every American
but I think the truth is that 
we really don’t care how others die 
as long as the lettuce stays crisp