a hymn of hate to Amerika


a hymn of hate to Amerika*


I dream that I’ll awake one day
and find Amerika sunk
some bubbles where the oceans meet
floating 
Coke cans ticker tape
all that’s left of Uncle Sam

I’d have no pity – no glycerin tears
like the 
Titanic
the good would go down with the bad
some might be saved
I alone would decide

I hate Amerika all that
free world stuff and liberty
all that moonshine democracy
I weep for The Scottsboro Boys**
I mourn old Sacco and Vanzetti

I wouldn’t fling a line to Nixon***
or launch a raft for any White House gang
given a chance I’d shove the wretches under
screaming that’s for Korea that’s for Vietnam****
and that’s for bubbblegum you bums

I hate Amerika all that pious apple pie
all that poisonous ice cream
all those shootouts – all those cops
all those company strikebreakers
in luxury Florida retirement homes

some Americans I’ve loved
some Americans I’d snatch from the sea
Doris Day Clint Eastwood Sugar Ray
a few musicians the odd poet – Chuck Berry say*****
but the rest can go down singing
my country ’tis of thee******

 

 

Jeff Cloves

*this poem was written c.1968
at the height of the war in Vietnam
and may have been a response to
the riotous demo outside the
American Embassy in Grosvenor Square

**Fifty years on Amerika is unchanged:

in 1966 black boxer Ruben ‘Hurricane’
Carter served 20 years for a triple murder
he didn’t commit and in 1989 five young
black and Hispanic teenagers (The Central
Park Five) were falsely accused and wrongly
imprisoned for the rape of a white woman
Jogger in Central Park.

***The text is as best as I can remember.

Gloria Dorothy and Doris are no more
but – as with the rest of the poem – I
decided not to update.

****The tune is the same as

God Save The Queen

 

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