Sailing from the United States

In this country I planted not one seed

Moved from address to address, did not plead

For justice in its courts, fell in love and out,

Thrust my arm into the sea and could not pull it out;

I did not see the summer lose its balance

Or organize the lonely in a gang, by chance

I did not build a city or a ship, or burn

The leaves that fell last autumn, in my turn

Built by the numb city building noise,

I learned my soul, morning and night are decoys

To catch a gesture to end the profit of the grave.

I raved, lost a country its hills and heroes

In a country that taught me to talk. I oppose

Its marketplace and thoroughfares, its family clung

To loveless occupation, mocking its young

Quick to grow protective imitation.

It is noon on the clock in the subway station,

On my mouth the clerks and laborers are killed,

Their galley slave brains folded and spilled

Upon my table. I will not eat upon these stains

This history, kiss this mouth, bend these sprains

For occupation. Will not change my mind.

The wind in my house is not a wind through olive trees,

I make no music of the janitor's keys,

I fashion no reed, no pipe, have not the wind for it,

Gold and violent death are counterfeit.

Throughout the villages of New England and the free

country

I will my unconditional mutiny,

I leave the accumulations of government and denial,

The songs and labors of generations at their trial,

To save an ounce of pewter from the blast, myself,

For a world to love a girl and work myself,

As a mine, subject to explosions and cave-ins.