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Gregory Corso - Elegiac Feelings American
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1 
How inseparable you and the America you saw yet was never 
there to see; you and America, like the tree and the 
ground, are one the same; yet how like a palm tree 
in the state of Oregon. . . dead ere it blossomed, 
like a snow polar loping the
Miami— 
How so that which you were or hoped to be, and the 
America not, the America you saw yet could 
not see 
So like yet unlike the ground from which you stemmed; 
you stood upon America like a rootless 
Hat-bottomed tree; to the squirrel there was no 
divorcement in its hop of ground to its climb of 
tree. . . until it saw no acorn fall, then it knew 
there was no marriage between the two; how 
fruitless, how useless, the sad unnaturalness 
of nature; no wonder the dawn ceased being 
a joy. . . for what good the earth and sun when 
the tree in between is good for nothing. . . the 
inseparable trinity, once dissevered, becomes a 
cold fruitless meaningless thrice-marked 
deathlie in its awful amputation. . . O butcher 
the pork-chop is not the pig—The American 
alien in America is a bitter truncation; and even 
this elegy, dear Jack, shall have a butchered 
tree, a tree beaten to a pulp, upon which it`ll be 
contained—no wonder no good news can be 
written on such bad news— 
How alien the natural home, aye, aye, how dies the tree when 
the ground is foreign, cold, unfree—The winds 
know not to blow the seed of the Redwood where 
none before stood; no palm is blown to Oregon, 
how wise the wind—Wise 
too the senders of the prophet. . . knowing the 
fertility of the designated spot where suchmeant 
prophecy be announced and answerable—the 
sower of wheat does not sow in the fields of cane; 
for the sender of the voice did also send the ear. 
And were little Liechtenstein, and not America, the 
designation. . . surely then we`d the tongues of 
Liechtenstein— 
Was not so much our finding America as it was America finding 
its voice in us; many spoke to America as though 
America by land-right was theirs by law-right 
legislatively acquired by materialistic coups of 
wealth and inheritance; like the citizen of society 
believes himself the owner of society, and what he 
makes of himself he makes of America and thus when 
he speaks of America he speaks of himself, and quite 
often such a he is duly elected to represent what he 
represents. . . an infernal ego of an America 
Thus many a patriot speaks lovingly of himself when he speaks 
of America, and not to appreciate him is not to 
appreciate America, and vice-versa 
The tongue of truth is the true tongue of America, and it could 
not be found in the Daily Heralds since the voice 
therein was a controlled voice, wickedly 
opinionated, and directed at gullible 
No wonder we found ourselves rootless. . . for we`ve become the 
very roots themselves,—the lie can never take root 
and there grow under a truth of sun and therefrom bear the fruit of truth 

Alas, Jack, seems I cannot requiem thee without
requieming America, and that`s one requiem
I shall not presume, for as long as I live there`ll
be no requiems for me 
For though the tree dies the tree is born anew, only until
the tree dies forever and never a tree born
anew. . . shall the ground die too 
Yours the eyes that saw, the heart that felt, the voice that
sang and cried; and as long as America shall live, though 
ye old Kerouac body hath died, yet shall you live. . . 
for indeed ours was a time of prophecy without death 
as a consequence. . . for indeed after us came the time 
of assassins, and whotll doubt thy last words "After 
me. . . the deluge" 
Ah, but were it a matter of seasons I`d not doubt the return of the 
tree, for what good the ground upon which we stand 
itself unable to stand—aye the tree will in seasonal 
time fall, for it be nature`s wont, thaPs why the 
ground, the down, the slow yet sure decomposition, 
until the very tree becomes the very ground where 
once it stood; yet falls the ground. . . ah, then what? 
unanswerable this be unto nature, for there is no 
ground whereon to fall and land, no down, no up 
even, directionless, and into what, if what, 
composition goeth its decomposition? 
We came to announce the human spirit in the name of
beauty and truth; and now this spirit cries out in nature`s sake 
the horrendous imbalance of all things natural. . . 
elusive nature caught! like a bird in hand, harnessed 
and engineered in the unevolutional ways of 
experiment and technique 
Yes though the tree has taken root in the ground the ground is 
upturned and in this forced vomitage is spewn the 
dire miasma of fossilific trees of death the 
million-yeared pitch and grease of a dinosauric age 
dead and gone how all brought to surface again and 
made to roam the sky we breathe in stampedes of 
pollution 
What hope for the America so embodied in thee, O friend, when 
the very same alcohol that disembodied your 
brother redman of his America, disembodied 
ye—A plot to grab their land, we know—yet what 
plot to grab the ungrabbable land of one`s spirit? Thy visionary America were 
impossible to unvision—for when the shades of the 
windows of the spirit are brought down, that which 
was seen yet remains. . . the eyes of the spirit yet see 
Aye the America so embodied in thee, so definitely rooted 
therefrom, is the living embodiment of all 
humanity, young and free 
And though the great redemptive tree blooms, not yet full, not 
yet entirely sure, there be the darksters, sad and 
old, would like to have it fall; they hack and chop 
and saw away. . . that nothing full and young and 
free for sure be left to stand at all 
Verily were such trees as youth be. . . were such be made to fall, 
and never rise to fall again, then shall the ground 
fall, and the deluge come and wash it asunder, 
wholly all and forever, like a wind out of nowhere into nowhere 


2 
"How so like Clark Gable hands your hands. . ." (Mexico 
conversation 1956)—Hands so strong and Mexican 
sunned, busy about America, hands I knew would 
make it, would hold guard and caring 
You were always talking about America, and America was always 
history to me, General Wolfe lying on the ground 
dying in his bright redcoat smittered by a bluecoat 
hanging in the classroom wall next to the father of 
our country whose heart area was painted in cloud. . 
. yes, ours was an American history, a history with a 
future, for sure; 

How a Whitman we were always wanting, a hoping, an 
America, that America ever an America to be, 
never an America to sing about or to, but ever an 
America to sing hopefully for 
All we had was past America, and ourselves, the now America, 
and O how we regarded that past! And O the big lie 
of that school classroom! The Revolutionary War. . . 
all we got was Washington, Revere, Henry, 
Hamilton, Jefferson, and Franklin. . . never Nat 
Bacon, Sam Adams, Paine. . . and what of liberty? 
was not to gain liberty that war, liberty they had, 
they were the freest peoples of their time; was not to 
lose that liberty was why they went to arms—yet, 
and yet, the season that blossomed us upon the 
scene was hardly free; be there liberty today? not to 
hear the redman, the blackman, the youngman tell— 
And in the beginning when liberty was all one could hear; wasn`t 
much of it for the poor witches of Salem; and that 
great lauder of liberty, Franklin, paid 100 dollar 
bounty for each scalp of the wild children of natural 
free; Pitt Jr. obtained most of the city of brotherly 
love by so outrageous a deception as stymied the 
trusting heart of his red brother with tortuous 
mistrust; and how ignorant of liberty the wise 
Jefferson owning the black losers of liberty; for the 
declarers of independence to declare it only for part 
of the whole was to declare civil war 
Justice is all any man of liberty need hope for; and justice was a 
most important foundling thing; a diadem for 
American life upon which the twinship of private 
property and God could be established; 
How suffered the poor native American the enforced 
establishing of those two pillars of liberty! 

From justice stems a variable God, from God stems a 
dictated justice 
"The ways of the Lord lead to liberty" sayeth St. Paul. . . 
- yet a man need liberty, not God, to be able to follow 
the ways of God 
The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those 
to whom the land by right of first claim 
collectively belonged; 
He who sells mankind`s land to a single man sells the 
Brooklyn Bridge 
The second greatest cause of human death. . . is the 
acquiring of property 
No American life is worth an acre of America. . . if No 
Trespassing and guarding mastiffs can`t tell you 
shotguns will 
So, sweet seeker, just what America sought you anyway? Know 
that today there are millions of Americans 
seeking America. . . know that even with all 
those eye-expanding chemicals—only more of 
what is not there do they see 
Some find America in songs of clumping stone, some in 
fogs of revolution 
All find it in their hearts. . . and O how it tightens the heart 
Not so much their being imprisoned in an old and unbearable 
America. . . more the America imprisoned in 
them—so wracks and darkens the spirit 
An America unseen, dreamed, tremors uncertain, bums the 
heart, sends bad vibes forth cosmic and otherwise 
You could see the contempt in their young-sad eyes. . . and 
meantime the jails are becoming barber shops, and 
the army has always been 
Yet unable they are to shave the hurricane from their eyes 
Look unto Moses, no prophet ever reached the dreamed of 
lands. . . ah but your eyes are dead. . . nor the 
America beyond your last dreamed hill hovers
real 

3 
How alike our hearts and time and dying, how our America out 
there and in our hearts insatiable yet overHowing 
hallelujahs of poesy and hope 
How we knew to feel each dawn, to ooh and aah each golden 
sorrow and helplessness coast to coast in our 
search for whatever joy steadfast never there 
nowever grey 
Yea the America the America unstained and never revolutioned 
for liberty ever in us free, the America in 
us—unboundaried and unhistoried, we the 
America, we the fathers of that America, the 
America you Johnnyappleseeded, the America I 
heralded, an America not there, an
America soon to be

The prophet affects the state, and the state affects the 
prophet—What happened to you, O friend, 
happened to America, and we know what 
happened to America—the stain. . . the stains, 
O and yet when it`s asked of you "What happened to him?" I say 
"What happened to America has happened 
him—the two were inseparable" Like the wind to the 
sky is the voice to the word…. 
And now that voice is gone, and now the word is bone, and the 
America is going, the planet boned 
A man can have everything he desires in his home yet have 
nothing outside the door—for a feeling man, a poet 
man, such an outside serves only to make home a 
place in which to hang oneself 
And us ones, sweet friend, we`ve always brought America home 
with us—and never like dirty laundry, even with all 
the stains 
And through the front door, lovingly cushioned in our hearts; 
where we sat down and told it our dreams of beauty 
hopeful that it would leave our homes beautiful 
And what has happened to our dream of beauteous 
America, Jack? 
Did it look beautiful to you, did it sound so too, in its cold 
electric blue, that America that spewed and 
stenched your home, your good brain, that unreal 
fake America, that caricature of America, that 
plugged in a wall America. . . a gallon of desperate 
whiskey a day it took ye to look that America in its 
disembodied eye 
And it saw you not, it never saw you, for what you saw was not 
there, what you saw was Laugh-in, and all America 
was in laughing, that America brought you in, 
brought America in, all that out there brought in, all 
that nowhere nothing in, no wonder you were 
lonesome, died empty and sad and lonely, you the 
real face and voice. . . caught before the fake face 
and voice—and it became real and you fake, 
O the awful fragility of things 

"What happened to him?" "What happened to you?" Death 
happened him; a gypped life happened; a God gone 
sick happened; a dream nightmared; a youth 
armied; an army massacred; the father wants to eat 
the son, the son feeds his stone, but the father no 
get stoned 
And you, Jack, poor Jack, watched your father die, your America 
die, your God die, your body die, die die die; and 
today fathers are watching their sons die, and their 
sons are watching babies die, why? Why? How we 
both asked WHY? 
O the sad sad awfulness of it all 

You but a mere decade of a Kerouac, but what a lifetime in that 
dix Kerouacl 
Nothing happened you that did not happen; nothing went 
unfulfilled, you circ`d the circle full, and what`s 
happening to America is no longer happening 
to you, for what happens to the consciousness of the land 
happens to the voice of that consciousness and the voice has 
died yet the land remains to forget what it has heard and the 
word leaves no bone
And both word and land of flesh and earth 
suffer the same sick the same death. . . and dies the voice before 
the flesh, and the wind blows a dead silence over the dying 
earth, and the earth will leave its bone, and nothing of wind will 
roll the moan, but silence, silence, nor e`en that will
God`s ear hear 

Aye, what happened to you, dear friend, compassionate friend, 
is what is happening to everyone and thing of 
planet the clamorous sadly desperate planet now 
one voice less. . . expendable as the wind. . . gone, 
and who`ll now blow away the awful miasma of 
sick, sick and dying earthflesh-soul America 

When you went on the road looking for America you found only 
what you put there and a man seeking gold finds the 
only America there is to find; and his investment 
and a poet`s investment. . . the same when comes 
the crash, and it`s crashing, yet the windows are 
tight, are not for jumping; from
hell none e`er fell 

4 
In Hell angels sing too
And they sang to behold anew
Those who followed the first Christ-bearer
left hell and beheld a world new 
yet with guns and Bibles came they
and soon their new settlement became old
and once again hell held quay 
The ArcAngel Raphael was I to you
And I put the Cross of the Lord of Angels
upon you. . . there
on the eve of a new world to explore
And you were flashed upon the old and darkling day
a Beat Christ-boy. . . bearing the gentle roundness of things 
insisting the soul was round not square
And soon. . . behind thee
there came a-following
the children of flowers
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