USA waste of Ohio
will haunt you from midnight aisles
in Streetsboro grocery stores,
rusted bicycles erect--
drained Cuyahoga river,
drunken downtown nights
throwing fistfuls of money to the air,
throwing empty wine bottles
at yellow mechanical monsters.
USA waste of Ohio
will tell you that
the "American Dream" is for sale
at a corner stand, $1.75,
in New Cumberland, Ohio.
It is a vanilla and chocolate swirl
ice cream cone.
USA waste of Ohio
will chase you down
in ruch hour traffic,
in university classrooms,
in wooden coffee shops,
in one night stands
where you hold in empty arms
the awful stench
of discarded reality.
USA waste of Ohio
will sit with you
in the cold city jail cell
as you rage empty echoes
of justice,
cling to steel bars,
camera intercom shouts out--
"Get down, you monkey!"
USA waste of Ohio
will stop you, halfway up
abandoned railroad towers,
will take your friends and lovers
to the bottom of deep landfills,
drag them through the sewers
and dump them into
vast polluted waterways.