Crossing Nation

Under silver wing

   San Francisco's towers sprouting

               thru thin gas clouds,

   Tamalpais black-breasted above Pacific azure

       Berkeley hills pine-covered below—

Dr Leary in his brown house scribing Independence

                                            Declaration

                 typewriter at window

        silver panorama in natural eyeball—

Sacramento valley rivercourse's Chinese

       dragonflames licking green flats north-hazed

   State Capitol metallic rubble, dry checkered fields

          to Sierras- past Reno, Pyramid Lake's

          blue Altar, pure water in Nevada sands'      

               brown wasteland scratched by tires

         Jerry Rubin arrested!  Beaten, jailed,

                coccyx broken—

Leary out of action—"a public menace…

       persons of tender years…immature

             judgement…pyschiatric examination…"

i.e. Shut up or Else   Loonybin or Slam

Leroi on bum gun rap, $7,000

        lawyer fees, years' negotiations—

SPOCK GUILTY headlined temporary, Joan Baez'

      paramour husband Dave Harris to Gaol

Dylan silent on politics, & safe—

        having a baby, a man—

Cleaver shot at, jail'd, maddened, parole revoked,

Vietnam War flesh-heap grows higher,

        blood splashing down the mountains of bodies

                on to Cholon's sidewalks—

Blond boys in airplane seats fed technicolor

       Murderers advance w/ Death-chords

   Earplugs in, steak on plastic

                  served—Eyes up to the Image—

What do I have to lose if America falls?

   my body? my neck? my personality?