Dreams of America

Baseball caps and cigarettes and hypocrites on stage,
This is my America, and this is where I stay.
Wanton schemes, soda machines, so the story goes…
No regrets; men, place you bets, dig yourself a hole.
Lobbyists in the capitol fight their fights and take their toll
From leaders send to represent those citizens from whom they’re sent.
Good ol’ boys with guitars, getting gritty on the waves
“This is our home, you don’t belong, you do not have a place.”
The silver eye on the silver spoon, prime time in the afternoon;
No one knows what no ones sees, West Coast dramas: the American Dream…
Sex and drugs and booze and guns yet we think we are the chosen ones.
Houses standing in the hills, medicine cabinets filled with pills;
While across town a baby cries, for want of mother’s lullabies.
She had to take a second shift, work twice as hard to stay adrift
In this sea so tempest tossed, no chart or compass leaves her lost.
While bombs, missiles, planes and, tanks from Kabul to the West Bank
Fight the fight of “democracy” all in the name of peace and liberty.
Money keeps rolling down the drain while our neighbors feel the pang
Of AIDS, hunger and, poverty; sure we know but we refuse to see.

-Caleb Williams

The Ballad of Catherine Barkley

Marry me my love, and we’ll run away
From this damn war and this damn rain.
Take me, dear, to the Falls and to the Gate
If we leave now we can escape our fate.
See, oh sweet, the clouds are parting;
They may yet give way to our son’s rising.
Switzerland is calling, love, calling we three on
To life anew, the lie is true and now our sun is falling.
Still I hope, and still I pray, though praying is for fools,
That the rain will slow and our son can grow
In a land without all this fighting.
Curse the curse, and damn the falling rain.
Shut up the skies and stop pain.
Don’t worry, love, and don’t you fret, I am strong—
And I am brave.
But the world it has taken me.
Our son too soon has set.
And I must follow him beyond that horizon.

-Caleb Williams