Yesterday I came across America While clearing out the cupboard in the back room Picked it up Opened it at New York Streets that hadn't been dusted in years Took out a skyscraper and lit it Towering inferno that tasted fine Decided to write the book It was late spring That morning I went to the garden and dug up the biplane Wings that glinted in the sun It flew better than ever before And I determined, there and then To take up that option on the necessary airspace To mount a voyage of discovery So we systematically killed off their buffalo herds Nowadays we'd destroy their factories Same difference Came in low over Manhattan Monday: built The White House Tuesday: erected The Statue of Liberty Refueling in a small town in the West of Ireland "America?" repeated the man As he passed me the last of the cans of gasoline Sunday: played baseball and built a church Custer's death on the evening news Arrival is immunization, immigration, passport control And The Committee of Un-American Activities Departure was: cancel milk and papers Leave front-door key with the neighbor Switch off gas and electricity Reports high cloud and clear weather ahead Little sign of air turbulence The wings glinted Three week supply of food and drink Landed in New Hampshire Climbed down from the cockpit A small step for man but Designed a flag Built a cabin Learned my zip code number off by heart Watched our civil war from the roof of The Empire State Building Got home in time to catch the Late Late Show Or else, I rang some friends Party, my place And we talked things over Decided to call them 'dollars' Later, we go out, buy hamburgers The guy, he likes our money, we like his burgers At the drive-in movie She suggested 'color' could be changed to 'color' without a 'u' On the way home, I said, "and 'thru' instead of 'through', OK?" She said it sounded fine to her So we got married Had two kids And decided to head west in search of gold and a new life Thirteen stars, that was obvious, but how many stripes? Later, we added more stars and bought Alaska, wholesale Put an ad in The New York Times It read Wanted, covered wagon, two horses Will exchange for biplane Good flyer, only one previous owner A hundred miles out we join up with a wagon train It features John Wayne, RIP And we each get twelve dollars a day as extras Union rates in those days And the kids died One of fever before we'd reached the Midwest The other in Korea Some work in Hollywood before the depression Made some dealing in slavery Lost it all in a poker game Marriage annulled Hoboed, swept bars, bummed cigarettes and stole Got drunk more times than I could count Threw crates of tea into the harbor Those were the days I could dance as well as Fred Astaire in my youth Do you remember Sly & the Family Stone at Woodstock? Far out! Do you remember the Alamo? Too much! Do you remember who cut down the cherry tree and never told a lie? Groovy, baby! Watergate, and the ways the wings glinted in the sun Do you remember all of that? I won a Purple Heart in Vietnam Killed children and mainlined Swore allegiance and swore, and still hate Puerto Ricans Ecology, cosmology Walt Whitman's white beard, and the collective guilt I was with Lincoln when he okayed the dropping of the H Bomb on Cuba We drove out the British Imported apples and horses and god Marketed tobacco and coffee and black musicians I rode pillion with Pancho Villa on a Harley Davidson 74 Paid for by the CIA By day, we dealt in drugs and guns By night, bugged and burgled by Presidents We slept beneath the Star Wars Dreaming of our Nazi past To wake up one day beside James Dean Were with him still when he died of AIDS And we were waiting on the quayside Whenever they shipped in the zipped-up Handsome, homecoming hero stiffs Were cheering when they lowered the last of the batch Into oceans of empty rhetoric We buried Buddy Holly in a jukebox My motto was: 'the only good Injun's a dead one' We used to sing all the time Penny whistle, a banjo, a guitar, a drum Proud songs that made tall men I remember it all as if it were yesterday "Yes," I said to him, "America!" And climbed up into the cockpit The wings just glinted