The American Way Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEF EGEGEHIGJIGKELGMNOPM QLLG DLEBRESTTUEVEWWEIXYI I ZBA2A2IDIB2DC2XD2E2R RF2BLG2VA2E2XBH2BXI2 J2OBTRBIDDK2L2K2I2M2 N2BCO2P2Q2DDB2LR2 R2JS2LDT2Q2U2DBBH2DT EIV2V2W2LEX2DBX2TLDD DY2LZ2CBI2TX2IEMDMIL DBA3BILB3LX2LXXRIBDR DC3DD3RB2DA2LOR EIDDDIBE3 IDLDIDIDIRLA | |
I am a great American | B |
I am almost nationalistic about it | C |
I love America like a madness | D |
But I am afraid to return to America | E |
I'm even afraid to go into the American Express | F |
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They are frankensteining Christ in America | E |
in their Sunday campaigns | G |
They are putting the fear of Christ in America | E |
under their tents in their Sunday campaigns | G |
They are driving old ladies mad with Christ in America | E |
They are televising the gift of healing and the fear of hell | H |
in America under their tents in their Sunday | I |
campaigns | G |
They are leaving their tents and are bringing their Christ | J |
to the stadiums of America in their Sunday | I |
campaigns | G |
They are asking for a full house an all get out | K |
for their Christ in the stadiums of America | E |
They are getting them in their Sunday and Saturday | L |
campaigns | G |
They are asking them to come forward and fall on their | M |
knees | N |
because they are all guilty and they are coming | O |
forward | P |
in guilt and are falling on their knees weeping their | M |
guilt | Q |
begging to be saved O Lord O Lord in their Monday | L |
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday | L |
and Sunday campaigns | G |
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It is a time in which no man is extremely wondrous | D |
It is a time in which rock stupidity | L |
outsteps the th Column as the sole enemy in America | E |
It is a time in which ignorance is a good Ameri cun | B |
ignorance is excused only where it is so | R |
it is not so in America | E |
Man is not guilty Christ is not to be feared | S |
I am telling you the American Way is a hideous monster | T |
eating Christ making Him into Oreos and Dr Pepper | T |
the sacrament of its foul mouth | U |
I am telling you the devil is impersonating Christ in America | E |
America's educators preachers are the mental dictators | V |
of false intelligence they will not allow America | E |
to be smart | W |
they will only allow death to make America smart | W |
Educators communicators are the lackeys of the | E |
American Way | I |
They enslave the minds of the young | X |
and the young are willing slaves but not for long | Y |
because who is to doubt the American Way | I |
is not the way | I |
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The duty of these educators is no different | Z |
than the duty of a factory foreman | B |
Replica production make all the young think alike | A2 |
dress alike believe alike do alike | A2 |
Togetherness this is the American Way | I |
The few great educators in America are weak helpless | D |
They abide and so uphold the American Way | I |
Wars have seen such men they who despised things about them | B2 |
but did nothing and they are the most dangerous | D |
Dangerous because their intelligence is not denied | C2 |
and so give faith to the young | X |
who rightfully believe in their intelligence | D2 |
Smoke this cigarette doctors smoke this cigarette | E2 |
and doctors know | R |
Educators know but they dare not speak their know | R |
The victory that is man is made sad in this fix | F2 |
Youth can only know the victory of being born | B |
all else is stemmed until death be the final victory | L |
and a merciful one at that | G2 |
If America falls it will be the blame of its educators | V |
preachers communicators alike | A2 |
America today is America's greatest threat | E2 |
We are old when we are young | X |
America is always new the world is always new | B |
The meaning of the world is birth not death | H2 |
Growth gone in the wrong direction | B |
The true direction grows ever young | X |
In this direction what grows grows old | I2 |
A strange mistake a strange and sad mistake | J2 |
for it has grown into an old thing | O |
while all else around it is new | B |
Rockets will not make it any younger | T |
And what made America decide to grow | R |
I do not know I can only hold it to the strangeness in man | B |
And America has grown into the American Way | I |
To be young is to be ever purposeful limitless | D |
To grow is to know limit purposelessness | D |
Each age is a new age | K2 |
How outrageous it is that something old and sad | L2 |
from the pre age incorporates each new age | K2 |
Do I say the Declaration of Independence is old | I2 |
Yes I say what was good for is not good for | M2 |
It was right and new to say all men were created equal | N2 |
because it was a light then | B |
But today it is tragic to say it | C |
today it should be fact | O2 |
Man has been on earth a long time | P2 |
One would think with his mania for growth | Q2 |
he would by now have outgrown such things as | D |
constitutions manifestos codes commandments | D |
that he could well live in the world without them | B2 |
and know instinctively how to live and be | L |
for what is being but the facility to love | R2 |
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Was not that the true goal of growth love | R2 |
Was not that Christ | J |
But man is strange and grows where he will | S2 |
and chalks it all up to Fate whatever be | L |
America rings with such strangeness | D |
It has grown into something strange and | T2 |
the American is good example of this mad growth | Q2 |
The boy man big baby meat | U2 |
as though the womb were turned backwards | D |
giving birth to an old man | B |
The victory that is man does not allow man | B |
to top off his empirical achievement with death | H2 |
The Aztecs did it by yanking out young hearts | D |
at the height of their power | T |
The Americans are doing it by feeding their young to the | E |
Way | I |
For it was not the Spaniard who killed the Aztec | V2 |
but the Aztec who killed the Aztec | V2 |
Rome is proof Greece is proof all history is proof | W2 |
Victory does not allow degeneracy | L |
It will not be the Communists will kill America | E |
no but America itself | X2 |
The American Way that sad mad process | D |
is not run by any one man or organization | B |
It is a monster born of itself existing of its self | X2 |
The men who are employed by this monster | T |
are employed unknowingly | L |
They reside in the higher echelons of intelligence | D |
They are the educators the psychiatrists the ministers | D |
the writers the politicians the communicators | D |
the rich the entertainment world | Y2 |
And some follow and sing the Way because they sincerely | L |
believe it to be good | Z2 |
And some believe it holy and become minutemen in it | C |
Some are in it simply to be in | B |
And most are in it for gold | I2 |
They do not see the Way as monster | T |
They see it as the 'Good Life' | X2 |
What is the Way | I |
The Way was born out of the American Dream a | E |
nightmare | M |
The state of Americans today compared to the Americans | D |
of the th century proves the nightmare | M |
Not Franklin not Jefferson who speaks for America today | I |
but strange red necked men of industry | L |
and the goofs of show business | D |
Bizarre Frightening The Mickey Mouse sits on the throne | B |
and Hollywood has a vast supply | A3 |
Could grammar school youth seriously look upon | B |
a picture of George Washington and 'Herman Borst' | I |
the famous night club comedian together at Valley | L |
Forge | B3 |
Old old and decadent gone the dignity | L |
the American sun seems headed for the grave | X2 |
O that youth might raise it anewl | L |
The future depends solely on the young | X |
The future is the property of the young | X |
What the young know the future will know | R |
What they are and do the future will be and do | I |
What has been done must not be done again | B |
Will the American Way allow this | D |
No | R |
I see in every American Express | D |
and in every army center in Europe | C3 |
I see the same face the same sound of voice | D |
the same clothes the same walk | D3 |
I see mothers fathers no | R |
difference among them | B2 |
Replicas | D |
They not only speak and walk and think alike | A2 |
they have the same facel | L |
What did this monstrous thing | O |
What regiments a people so | R |
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How strange is nature's play on America | E |
Surely were Lincoln alive today | I |
he could never be voted President not with his | D |
looks | D |
Indeed Americans are babies all in the embrace | D |
of Mama Way | I |
Did not Ike when he visited the American Embassy in | B |
Paris a year ago say to the staff 'Everything is fine just drink | E3 |
Coca Cola and everything will be all right ' | - |
This is true and is on record | I |
Did not American advertising call for TOGETHERNESS | D |
not orgiasticly like today's call | L |
nor as means to stem violence | D |
This is true and is on record | I |
Are not the army centers in Europe ghettos | D |
They are and O how sad how lost | I |
The PX newsstands are filled with comic books | D |
The army movies are always Doris Day | I |
What makes a people huddle so | R |
Why can't they be universal | L |
Gregory Corso
(1)
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