AMERICAN DREAMS poem in selection of poems on various topics and themes, including America, Japan, Malawi and Guantanamo.

This AMERICAN DREAMS poem is part of the Genghis Lotus Poetry Collection, a selection of poems free to read online.

The collection includes school poems, city poems, nature poems, war poems, cancer poems, death poems, and, additionally, other poems, assorted poems on various topics and themes, this being one of those other poems.

Webmaster for this site is poet Hugh Cook, born in Britain, educated in New Zealand, and the author of, amongst other works, the fantasy series Chronicles of an Age of Darkness.

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AMERICAN DREAMS

It is a land of dreams.
What is important, in America,
Is not
The transitional now,
The steam press laundry,
The cardboard box,
The call center avalanche,
But the glistening pearls of the future,
The future which the dream will deliver.
The dream, it is hypothesized,
Is always achievable.
Barriers are there to be surmounted.
The hippopotamus of improbability
Is there to be dismissed.
America
Dreams that the impossible is possible,
That the son of, say,
A Kenyan goatherd,
Can beanstalk in one stupendous bound
Right to the Oval Office.
It is the conceit of American analytics
That anyone can do this if they try,
As long as they try
Hard enough.

We imagine that a million
Do try.
And succeed.
A million eyeballs implode
To the single office.
Instant pate!

Americans value, fiercely,
Their right to enjoy the wealth
They will one day achieve
(Though not necessarily in this lifetime).
In that yet-to-be-accessed world
Of unlimited splurges,
All giveable gifts will be given.

Meantime, in the quotidian mundane,
The average American is still affluent enough
To supersize everything.
The American dream is certainly achievable
At the level of the hamburger.

I confess to liking
American books,
American movies
And American music.
But the hamburger?
No, that doesn't do it for me.
However,
The universally available hot apple pie,
Found on sale right around the planet,
That part of the American dream I can live.


Copyright © 2007 Hugh Cook
May be photocopied for classroom use

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