He is the American, branded in his own image, starved and sickened, panting for more, a soldier of his own means, stranded in a land distant, that belongs to the distant to the decadent to the depraved, he being native, he being naive, he being born in his disadvantage, born for the dollar, born for the soul, born again, and above all born for the acquisition of the world and all that rests therein, a stranger to himself, the people's son, the prodigal.
He is the American, left gazing at distant horizons, left leering on empty docks in wakes of sailing ships, left trembling wrapped in his stars and in his stripes, left weighted with thoughts, dumb-bell-heavy, and memories, oh memories distant, like fleeting horizon bound ships fleeting to god knows what, left embracing a memory that never was and a dream that never will be and a hope that goes skin deep, left as a refugee in a life-long boot camp boat race trudging circular and endless.
He is the American, never confusing the path for the way, always feeding upon himself, never seeing blindly without seeing blindly, always dancing two hands not one footstep back beat rhythms upon rhythms, always working harder but never enough, filling empty ditches with the ashes of home, shouting loudly at strangers in bars, challenging strong men with hands crossed boldly behind back, gazing perilously into a future too strange and unknown to be his own.
He is the American, who huddles his tears in dark so dark his hiding places, who collects his close ones his friends too close his enemies closer still, who wields his body and chisels his soul to heroics his body politic his body seductive his body enraged his body transcendent his body destroyed, whose father's lost and ancient gods transparent he imitates, whose mannerisms imitate the gods he's never known the gods he'll never know, whose iron skin so pervious as to suffer through and through.
He is the American unending He is the American despised He is the American bought He is the American wise He is the American lie He is the American naught.And truly through and through.
