THIS IS NOT AN AMERICAN
PLANET / EATING CHROMOSOMES

stooped up, hunkered down,
eyes gloating paranormally,
trying to make some sense of it all,
in tests, 8 out of 10 poets say
- as hep cats – they prefer the
Harley Davidson typewriter

“it’s pretty dreary living in the American
age – unless, of course, you’re an American”
- Jimmy Porter in ‘Look Back In Anger’
by John Osborne

this ain’t (this is not)
a pubic service announcement, & (this ain’t)
this is not yet the last showdown of the US Raj,
but Oh Baby, Oh Baby, Gee Baby, Gee Baby,
I so wanted to be Elvis Presley in a
scene from ‘King Creole’ snuck inside
the vinyl night of jazzbeat New Orleans
that I practiced thru (through) mirrors
& got left permanently deformed
with an upper-lip sneer,
& I so wanted to be James Dean,
but all I got left’s the grudge,
& the first book I ever stole was a
Monroe biog. With nude photo-insert,
& I still got the hard-on
but
THIS IS NOT AN AMERICAN PLANET
THIS IS NOT AN AMERICAN PLANET
THIS IS NOT AN AMERICAN PLANET

“perhaps all our children will be American…?”
- Cliff Lewis in ‘Look Back In Anger’
by John Osborne

see the Englishman, see the Englishwoman,
the man and the woman watch T.V.,
they see the American,
the American on the T.V.,
he talks democracy, he talks the axis of evils,
he talks 1st & 2nd strikes, Reds and NATO,
he talks $pecial relationships,
the man likes the American,
she likes what the American sez,
he’s not thought non-NATO in 20 yrs,
she’s never thought non-NATO,
see the American smile
stooped up/hunkered down
trying to make sense of it, this is
no public information service, this is
a Communiqué from the European Theatre,
this is no more fashion than fallacy, less
apology than apostle of change, but I’m
still bored, force-fed with America’s
iron and steel skin-rust, still crushed
flat on its irony-bored, it still makes
the blood crawl cold with gasoline,
it’s in my head ever-reaching back,
ever over-reaching forward,
I’m American by proxy,
Ich bin ein Amerikaner, speaking
an American cultural vocabulary,
but Oh Baby, Gee Baby Baby,
I’M A EUROPEAN SON
head-wrecked by America,
O.D.’ed & deep-throated by America,
car-chased, Marshall-Aided & auto-wrecked
Mcburgered & Coked-out on America, melt-down
braincelled on Little Richard, Kennedy(s), S.F.,
mind-wormed & eyes gloating paranormally on $$$’s,
Contra’d, Cuba’d, Guantanamo’d, neo-con’d,
Star Whore’d & al-Qaeda’d on the USA,
I wanna be sedated (Ramones), America, America,
go fuck yourself on your Cruise & F1-11’s
(line-sampled from Allen Ginsberg)
‘cos
THIS IS NOT AN AMERICAN PLANET
THIS IS NOT AN AMERICAN PLANET
THIS IS NOT AN AMERICAN PLANET
I’m stooped up
typing this now
in Yorkshire, an
anarcho-syndicalist atheist,
a (predominantly) hetero-sexual,
anti-monarchist, non-patriotic,
english european
and
THIS IS NOT AN
AMERICAN
PLANET
.
.
.
.
.

A revised version of a poem originally published in:-
‘FOLIO no.12’ – part two only (UK – June 1986)
‘DIGGERS MAGAZINE no.4’ (UK – February 1987)
‘ODYSSEY no.1’ (UK – May 1990)
‘BOGG no.63’ (UK/USA – November 1990)
revised version published in:-
‘URBAN DISTRICT WRITERS no.1’ (UK – July 2007)