To Be American

To be American again
Teenaged and certain of innocence
Six lanes of Western caravan
Burn fuel to speed up the Renaissance

Before the trench coats and the roped-off rooms
The shell-shocked mothers and the TV crews

Foreclosing a grand, old dream
Black motorcade running on empty
Big box and a Ponzi scheme
Drain everything, land of the plenty

In high school, I sang in the choir
With all the Mormons from Rohnert Park
Now all their houses are on fire
Strange glow of oxblood in the dark

I think we all meant well, or so I thought
That season, privilege was a parking spot
Foreclosing a grand, old dream
Black motorcade running on empty
Big box and a Ponzi scheme
Drain everything, land of the plenty

If Reconstruction and the War seemed distant
Back in eleventh grade
How quaint our simple lives before seem now
In face of the coming days

Foreclosing a grand, old dream
Black motorcade running on empty
Big box and a Ponzi scheme
Drain everything, land of the plenty

Our furniture's on the street
In every church, last rites are spoken
One criminal's soft defeat can't change the fact that we're broken