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Gregory Corso - The American Way
Work rating: Medium

1 
I am a great American 
I am almost nationalistic about it! 
I love America like a madness! 
But I am afraid to return to America 
I`m even afraid to go into the American Express— 


2 
They are frankensteining Christ in America
in their Sunday campaigns 
They are putting the fear of Christ in America
under their tents in their Sunday campaigns 
They are driving old ladies mad with Christ in America 
They are televising the gift of healing and the fear of hell
in America under their tents in their Sunday
campaigns 
They are leaving their tents and are bringing their Christ
to the stadiums of America in their Sunday
campaigns 
They are asking for a full house an all get out
for their Christ in the stadiums of America 
They are getting them in their Sunday and Saturday 
campaigns 
They are asking them to come forward and fall on their 
knees 
because they are all guilty and they are coming 
forward 
in guilt and are falling on their knees weeping their 
guilt 
begging to be saved O Lord O Lord in their Monday 
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday 
and Sunday campaigns 

3 
It is a time in which no man is extremely wondrous 
It is a time in which rock stupidity
outsteps the 5th Column as the sole enemy in America 
It is a time in which ignorance is a good Ameri-cun 
ignorance is excused only where it is so
it is not so in America 
Man is not guilty Christ is not to be feared 
I am telling you the American Way is a hideous monster
eating Christ making Him into Oreos and Dr. Pepper
the sacrament of its foul mouth 
I am telling you the devil is impersonating Christ in America 
America`s educators & preachers are the mental-dictators
of false intelligence they will not allow America
to be smart
they will only allow death to make America smart 
Educators & communicators are the lackeys of the 
American Way 
They enslave the minds of the young
and the young are willing slaves (but not for long)
because who is to doubt the American Way
is not the way? 


The duty of these educators is no different 
than the duty of a factory foreman 
Replica production make all the young think alike
dress alike believe alike do alike 
Togetherness this is the American Way 
The few great educators in America are weak & helpless 
They abide and so uphold the American Way 
Wars have seen such men they who despised things about them 
but did nothing and they are the most dangerous 
Dangerous because their intelligence is not denied
and so give faith to the young
who rightfully believe in their intelligence 
Smoke this cigarette doctors smoke this cigarette
and doctors know 
Educators know but they dare not speak their know 
The victory that is man is made sad in this fix 
Youth can only know the victory of being born
all else is stemmed until death be the final victory
and a merciful one at that 
If America falls it will be the blame of its educators 
preachers communicators alike 
America today is America`s greatest threat 
We are old when we are young 
America is always new the world is always new 
The meaning of the world is birth not death 
Growth gone in the wrong direction 
The true direction grows ever young 
In this direction what grows grows old 
A strange mistake a strange and sad mistake
for it has grown into an old thing
while all else around it is new 
Rockets will not make it any younger— 
And what made America decide to grow? 
I do not know I can only hold it to the strangeness in man 
And America has grown into the American Way— 
To be young is to be ever purposeful limitless 
To grow is to know limit purposelessness 
Each age is a new age 
How outrageous it is that something old and sad
from the pre-age incorporates each new age— 
Do I say the Declaration of Independence is old? 
Yes I say what was good for 1789 is not good for 1960 
It was right and new to say all men were created equal 
because it was a light then 
But today it is tragic to say it 
today it should be fact— 
Man has been on earth a long time 
One would think with his mania for growth
he would, by now, have outgrown such things as
constitutions manifestos codes commandments
that he could well live in the world without them
and know instinctively how to live and be
—for what is being but the facility to love? 


Was not that the true goal of growth, love? 
Was not that Christ? 
But man is strange and grows where he will
and chalks it all up to Fate whatever be— 
America rings with such strangeness 
It has grown into something strange and
the American is good example of this mad growth 
The boy man big baby meat
as though the womb were turned backwards
giving birth to an old man 
The victory that is man does not allow man
to top off his empirical achievement with death 
The Aztecs did it by yanking out young hearts
at the height of their power 
The Americans are doing it by feeding their young to the
Way 
For it was not the Spaniard who killed the Aztec
but the Aztec who killed the Aztec 
Rome is proof Greece is proof all history is proof 
Victory does not allow degeneracy 
It will not be the Communists will kill America
no but America itself— 
The American Way that sad mad process
is not run by any one man or organization 
It is a monster born of itself existing of its self 
The men who are employed by this monster
are employed unknowingly 
They reside in the higher echelons of intelligence 
They are the educators the psychiatrists the ministers
the writers the politicians the communicators
the rich the entertainment world 
And some follow and sing the Way because they sincerely 
believe it to be good 
And some believe it holy and become minutemen in it 
Some are in it simply to be in 
And most are in it for gold 
They do not see the Way as monster 
They see it as the "Good Life"
What is the Way? 
The Way was born out of the American Dream a 
nightmare— 
The state of Americans today compared to the Americans
of the 18th century proves the nightmare— 
Not Franklin not Jefferson who speaks for America today
but strange red-necked men of industry
and the goofs of show business 
Bizarre! Frightening! The Mickey Mouse sits on the throne
and Hollywood has a vast supply— 
Could grammar school youth seriously look upon
a picture of George Washington and "Herman Borst"
the famous night club comedian together at Valley
Forge? 
Old old and decadent gone the dignity
the American sun seems headed for the grave 
O that youth might raise it anewl 
The future depends solely on the young 
The future is the property of the young 
What the young know the future will know 
What they are and do the future will be and do 
What has been done must not be done again 
Will the American Way allow this? 
No. 
I see in every American Express
and in every army center in Europe
I see the same face the same sound of voice
the same clothes the same walk 
I see mothers & fathers no 
difference among them 
Replicas 
They not only speak and walk and think alike 
they have the same facel 
What did this monstrous thing? 
What regiments a people so? 

How strange is nature`s play on America 
Surely were Lincoln alive today
he could never be voted President not with his
looks— 
Indeed Americans are babies all in the embrace
of Mama Way 
Did not Ike, when he visited the American Embassy in
Paris a year ago, say to the staff—"Everything is fine, just drink 
Coca Cola, and everything will be all right."
This is true, and is on record 
Did not American advertising call for TOGETHERNESS?
not orgiasticly like today`s call
nor as means to stem violence
This is true, and is on record. 
Are not the army centers in Europe ghettos? 
They are, and O how sad how lost! 
The PX newsstands are filled with comic books 
The army movies are always Doris Day 
What makes a people huddle so? 
Why can`t they be universal? 
Who has smelled them so? 
This is serious! I do not mock or hate this
I can only sense some mad vast conspiracy! 
Helplessness is all it is! 
They are caught caught in the Way— 
And those who seek to get out of the Way 
can not 
The Beats are good example of this 
They forsake the Way`s habits
and acquire for themselves their own habits 
And they become as distinct and regimented and lost
as the main flow
because the Way has many outlets 
like a snake of many tentacles— 
There is no getting out of the Way 
The only way out is the death of the Way 
And what will kill the Way but a new consciousness 
Something great and new and wonderful must happen
to free man from this beast 
It is a beast we can not see or even understand 
For it be the condition of our minds 
God how close to science fiction it all seemsl 
As if some power from another planet
incorporated itself in the minds of us all 
It could well bel 
For as I live I swear America does not seem like America
to me 

Americans are a great people 
I ask for some great and wondrous event
that will free them from the Way
and make them a glorious purposeful people once
again 
I do not know if that event is due deserved
or even possible 
I can only hold that man is the victory of life 
And I hold firm to American man 

I see standing on the skin of the Way
America to be as proud and victorious as St.
Michael on the neck of the fallen Lucifer—
Source
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