Sunday, July 1, 2012

A Poem by Neil Ellman

Map

 

(after the painting by Jasper Johns)

Disunited states
       helter skelter
                     borderlines—

Show me your land
      of enchantment
      northstar-bluegrass-hawkeye-
      hoosiers in their place
      the garden of your empire dreams

Give me your tired       your poor
     your blue-eyed scientists
     the wretched refuse of the moon

Listen to my spangled song
     oh, see can you say
                mississippi with a drawl
                texas with a twang

Oh, sweet disneyland
     I see your destiny
     In reds yellows      blues
     unfolding on a map.



Neil Ellman lives and writes in New Jersey. With more than 500 published poems to his credit, his work appears throughout the world, from Australia to Zimbabwe. The latest of his eight chapbooks, Convergence and Conversion, is just out from The Knives Forks and Spoons Press in the United Kingdom.

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