Post American Song (revised)

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