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Delmore Schwartz - The True-Blue American
Work rating: Low

Jeremiah Dickson was a true-blue American, 
For he was a little boy who understood America, for he felt that he must 
Think about everything; because that’s all there is to think about, 
Knowing immediately the intimacy of truth and comedy, 
Knowing intuitively how a sense of humor was a necessity 
For one and for all who live in America. Thus, natively, and 
Naturally when on an April Sunday in an ice cream parlor Jeremiah 
Was requested to choose between a chocolate sundae and a banana split 
He answered unhesitatingly, having no need to think of it 
Being a true-blue American, determined to continue as he began: 
Rejecting the either-or of Kierkegaard, and many another European; 
Refusing to accept alternatives, refusing to believe the choice of between; 
Rejecting selection; denying dilemma; electing absolute affirmation: knowing 
         in his breast 
                  The infinite and the gold 
                  Of the endless frontier, the deathless West. 


“Both: I will have them both!” declared this true-blue American 
In Cambridge, Massachusetts, on an April Sunday, instructed 
         By the great department stores, by the Five-and-Ten, 
Taught by Christmas, by the circus, by the vulgarity and grandeur of 
         Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon, 
Tutored by the grandeur, vulgarity, and infinite appetite gratified and 
         Shining in the darkness, of the light 
On Saturdays at the double bills of the moon pictures, 
The consummation of the advertisements of the imagination of the light 
Which is as it was—the infinite belief in infinite hope—of Columbus, 
         Barnum, Edison, and Jeremiah Dickson.
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