#james dazell

[jamesdazell]

[jamesdazell]

AMERICAN TRAGEDY

I spent my afternoons on summer rooftops. Dust and wind find my lungs. I see the city, I see the flags, I feel the country, the spirit is a waving flag. At peace, in dry hot heat, overlooking roofs, grounded by the empire state, flags waving in the wind. I was here for a time, a strange guest, foreign flâneur, foot wandering stranger on unknown streets. Cult society, mastered by disillusion. I am more in awe of my purpose than of New York. New York is here, I am here, that is all. America, Oh, America. I wanted to dive in to Thoreou’s Walden pond, pull back the grass under Whitman’s leaves, shout with a Ginsberg Howl, leave behind a Coney Island State of Mind, and head off On The Road. In America I felt enclosed, not in reality, or truth, but in ideology. A reality that was impenetrable by the patriarchy and distance from state to state. America was a romanticised mythology. It’s arts a glorification, a condemnation, or a satire of America, but America the subject. I understood that it’s music was an ability to reach beyond that mythology, but ultimately came out of the same inescapable mythology. That mythology produced its music, its Hollywood, its America. The poetry of America is in its freedom, beyond the walls of its vision of spirit and ideology, was a attempt stretch beyond America with a periscope to frontiers. A poetry of frontiers, a music of freedom from state. America’s music was the myth above the truth. A romanticised nationalism that Europe had done away with a century ago. Projecting ill-conceived nationalistic masturbation. “The greatest country on God’s green Earth” the news report said that blared from the television “Make America great again!” as though America was some lost Eden, and would rewind, taking it backwards. A nostalgia for an old rail road tycoon America, of gunslinging wild west, of slavery riches. Which America? America was not a country, it was a business. Even God still exists here. It was as if being back in time. New York City, a glamorous idea, but paradise, no paradise but only levels of Hell. The streets were paved with dollars and the sound of transactions. Money was the patron saint of America, the symbol of life and glory, as some aspirational destiny. Money was a mistress that creates slaves of its lovers. There was no side street news hand out that populate the streets of London like city pigeons. There was no information but the waving American flag stars and stripes of its iron crest, and the crest of God, an indisobeyable belief system that America was, as the television blared, “the greatest country on God’s green Earth.”. The city was washed with imperialism, and an inertia creeped like a silent black cloud ready for a storm. Is this America? America had three religions: Money, God, and the mythology of America. All united on the face of the dollar. None were the victims but the American people. Washed in ideology and righteousness. Reverse imperialism, undone, broken world. But I am not here, wherever I write, I become the skies, lost in deep intoxication, with burning eyes. I see you America. Awake from your American dream. James Dazell July 17th 2016 New York, New York United State of America