My North America

by Peter McNestry

I’ve Seen Farmhouses Toppled

Like Stills In Sad Pool hall Portraits

And Clowns Holding Withered Balloons

Alongside Buzz saw Humming Highways

Crying In the Bleached Dry Grass

Holding Maps to the Stars

In My North America

I’ve seen box wine hoboes

Sleeping Outside Palatial Homes

I’ve heard the laugh of punch drunk socialites

Secretly hiding the bruises from a good night out

Clutching plastic rosary beads, passing out

At the feet of ivory toilets

In My North America

I’ve seen shoes tied over telephone wires

Before a sunset bleeding through a powder blue sky

I’ve heard the sex of a thousand couples

In urban sprawls

In My North America

I’ve witnessed great minds blessed with genius

Babbling nonsense through rain kissed alleys

Waging war at the moon and the stars

In My North America

I’ve seen Eastern Block Prostitutes

Spinning Cell phones In American Dream Diners At Midnight

Singing Sad Serenades over the hum of Kino machines

In My North America

I’ve seen the long lines of haggard immigrants

Outside Soup Kitchen’s

Whispering, “we are in the promise land”

In My North America

I’ve heard the sound of a thousand Billy clubs

Cracking skulls of leftist dropouts sporting woven A’s on their breast pocket

Here in this police state

That romanticizes the heavy hand of Joe law

And censors the words of expression

I’ve seen politicians with simple simian features

Waving flags and tapping Cuban rolled cigars

On television sets in the living rooms of suburban slaves

In My North America

I’ve seen hospitals glowing alongside quiet cemeteries

And dead dry roses withering in every room

Along every headstone and a thousand nameless white crosses

Here We Are Alone Together

In My North America

I have heard the faded laughter

From rollercoaster America

Past the giant funhouses

And boarded up freak show exhibitions

I have sat with manic fiends in midtown New York

Listening to the stories of their lives

While they cough so loudly over powering the buzz of the city

I have seen bag ladies slumped in dirty bus stations

With rotten mushroom grey molars,

Their rotten stubs of teeth glistening in the sun

Smoking half smoked cigarettes and pumping quarters

in the coin operated television sets

In My North America

Farewell Farewell

Oh Sweet Night

With the Buzz of Ballgames and Loud Talk Radio

For You Are A Ghost To Me Now.

Sweet Love

Oblivious To Your Own Mortality

Throwing Your Weight Around

The Planet Earth

Overflowing Now

With A Thousand Goodbyes.

Peter McNestry was born in Dublin Ireland.  Peter is inspired by dirty bars, old hotels and boarded up fun houses that have long been forgotten.  He currently is based just outside Brisbane, Australia and is constantly being inspired through the joys of travel.