Trust the Vortex

So long since the last post, I suppose it's appropriate that when I post again it's back from another visit to Bennington. This time for the Bennington Writing Seminars 15 year all class reunion. For me, it is 2 1/2 years, since I graduated in January 2007. Two of my classmates, Jan Johnson and Woody Lewis were there - whom I haven't seen since graduation. So good to see them! And others, from other classes, Tanaya, Nancer, Suzanne.....the faculty and staff. New friends made from other classes, in our poetry craft gathering with Henri Cole - we hung out in the dorm living room and dug ourselves deep into discussing a few works from Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. Talking about poetry re-energizes me. I also signed up for the nonfiction gathering with Bob Shacochis - mostly hanging out with good discussions and a bit of workshopping. I am working on memoir and playwriting and it's good to have feedback from non-fiction writers.

I went back for a two main reasons -
1. To reconnect with friends - life is short. Sue Case, our class of Jan 2007 passed away this spring- her cancer came back. This was a bit of a surprise, as I thought she was doing better and she will be missed by all of us. I don't know when I will see classmates again, so I needed to get out there. Jan and Woody made it and we had a lot of fun reconnecting - besides a kick-ass time out on the dance floor! Woody, you always beat me partying every time, rumors were that you jammed with the Dog House Band till the wee hours (I missed that one, dang!) and hit the Blue Benny diner at 5 am and someone was tree climbing. That's all I say about that one. I took care of Jan and I - we both so needed to escape and relax from work and everything else.

2. To recharge my writing batteries and creative spirit. Sometimes I have to leave Minneapolis and get out of my groove here to re-connect with the wild woods of Vermont and sit in the vortex awhile. It truly is a magical place for me.

I had a bit of a change of plans at the last minute. My classmate Mary Elizabeth (my Auntie M as I call her) were going to meet in Hartford, CT and drive up together. She had a funeral to go to at the last minute, so she wasn't able to go to campus, so I rented a car and drove up and then stayed with her on Sunday evening so we had a day together before I had to leave on Monday.

Whenever I drive I get more of a feeling for a place. I drove up I-91 from Hartford, all the way to Highway 2, in northern Massachusetts - I've always wanted to see what that road is like - gorgeous! Through the Green Mountains - pouring rain all the way, but creeks and streams, forests, hairpin turns...it would be cool to hike and explore that area more. I stopped at North Adams, MA - a college artsy town with a lot of galleries. Then a short drive up to Bennington - this time I stayed at the Best Western - I've stayed there before when the June heat got to me and I couldn't stand my dorm room another minute - but this time it was raining and cool and it was getting late so I got a few comfort foods from the nearby Hanaford grocery and settled in my room to watch cable TV and veg out. Those 4-pack single serving wine boxes are nice! Vermont has wine, beer and groceries in the same store - will Minnesota ever catch up to that? "That 70's Show" was on; love the reruns. Eric's girlfriend was becoming best friends with his mom and he hated that - but she didn't have her mom to hang out with, so they were going shopping, baking cookies, doing mom/daughter things. This triggered an emotional outbreak - my issue has always been family. I'm realizing I married the first time for the family I thought I didn't have, I haven't been that close to my mom until recently, and when my parents moved out of state 18 years ago; well let's just say I don't get to go shopping with my mom much. I now call my parents once a week or so - I used to go months without keeping in touch. Friends have always been like family to me. I missed my girlfriends which I don't see enough of - I've been in a bit of a funky anti-social depressed spell since the last blog post. I wanted to remedy that.

I also feel very midwestern whenever I travel east - Vermont has all these wonderful 'farms' - vegetable gardens, mostly. I think of farms as those vast stretches in Iowa where one can see for miles....Names I only heard about in books were now on highway signs. Hamden, New Haven, Yale, Middlesex, the Berkshires, Appalachian Trail. I didn't grow up around colleges and English Lit majors, I've learned more from experience than someone pointing me in the right direction. But that's what the Vortex is all about - make your own opportunities. Read hundreds of books. Write one or two of your own. Always Be Closing. The trip begins when I arrive on campus Friday morning.

Bob Shacochis had the first lecture that I attended, at 10 am - "Postmodernism 2.1 - the Blurring of Genre." I like Bob, some women seem to hate his male chauvinism, or they call it that and he can piss some people off. I like that quality that he tells it like it is without the academic babble and game playing. Be real. Life is unbearable without illusions. What is unrecognizable in yourself? No one ever knows themselves. When writing, let the conversation (dialogue) speak for itself, tell vs. show. Sometimes truth needs lies. The 'control' of life is a facade. Genres can be bent and twisted. A collage has to be edited to be art. Selective imagination?

By now it's stopped raining. Sun peeks out, more humid. I walk to the 'end of the world', that group of rocks at the end of the commons lawn to sit in the armchair for an hour and close my eyes in the sunlight. I only have to write one poem - maybe. I know I can always come back here, and that is comforting. I start writing....

Alumni dinner in the yellow dining room, Jan hasn't made it yet, I won't see her until later this evening in the student center....she drove in from New Hampshire from work. Welcome, everyone, we are back together, some haven't been back for years and years, some many times. We toast to Liam. Share stories. There is someone here from every graduating class!

At the evening guest/faculty reading we have Mary Gaitskill and Nick Montemarano. Mary's work is enchanting - she wrote the story "Secretary" that was the basis for the feature film of the same name. She reads a bit from "Don't Cry," her new collection of short stories. "It was a sad situation....except...." (write from there!)
Nick talks about the Law of Attraction and I realize he is reading from his novel with the protagonist as a motivational speaker dealing with is fears - of doubt, his sickly wife. A new life, the one you've always wanted...start now....

We hang out in the 'new' student center - at least the lights are dim and the Doghouse Band is about to play (Sven on guitar, David Gates on guitar too and others...) but Jan and I miss the old one. Change is the only constant. She's had a rough year, both parents died, a feral cat she was taking care of wrecked her apartment and she had to move, but we survive and move on. Her book is out there, yay for that! I watch everyone dance. I am relaxed, I feel at home. I wish I stayed on campus now, but it is too late for that.

Saturday graduate lectures - I miss the first one, but didn't miss a quick cafeteria breakfast...one graduate (Rider Strong, what kind of cool name is that?) does an excellent piece about Ernest Hemingway and omissions - he ties it in nicely by starting off with how his wife packed his manuscript and carbon copy in a suitcase to take to visit him in Paris, and it was stolen, so he lost everything. How did that affect his writing style? An exercise to consider for yourself - write your first draft, then, without looking at it, rewrite it.

Panel of 3 alums and Sven - the Life of Letters post-Bennington. I'm glad they called this the Life of Letters vs. something with publishing. It's all about closing, creating your own opportunities, letting the vortex help you out....

Our poetry session with Henri Cole - he is now visiting faculty. I never had the chance to have him as an instructor, so it was good to get to know him better - and the other poets, all new friends. By this time I was ready to write again, but the graduation ceremony for this year's grads was looming in a half hour, so quick changed clothes and walked over to Usden Hall. It is different without Liam, and Sven Birkerts does a fine job. He laments a bit about the future of reading and writing (see any of his books on the subject) Mary Gaitskill was the commencement speaker, who also shares some stories about students who - if they don't read much, or aren't exposed to much art or music - they still feel the power of it, they RESPECT it. She told the story of a renowned classical musician who played for 45 minutes in a subway station in New York City. Only 3 people out of a thousand stopped to listen. One recognized him, the others paused, one was a child who wanted his mom to stop, but he had to move on. All were in a hurry. What are we listening to? Will we stop to listen to something on the street that people pay high ticket prices for in a concert hall? All I can hope for is that people will hopefully feel something that is real once in awhile.
Dinner, wine, talking with everyone, a good time had by all! And dance, dance, dance...there were hula hoops too...something finally clicked in me about halfway through the dance in the student center - and I let go and we all danced till closing. It was REAL. The DJ was okay, he kept playing weird mixes. I requested "Fame" by David Bowie for old times sake (my graduate lecture used that as a theme song).

Sunday morning breakfast, Bob's workshop and on to our alumni luncheon in the Carriage Barn. Last chance to see everyone, along with faculty, Ed Ochester my instructor was there too. Closed with a reading by Henri Cole, Jill McCorkle and Bob Shacochis. There were more activities planned, but it was time for me to leave...hugs, kisses, goodbyes and my drive on south Hwy 7 to I-90 across the mountains again - more pouring rain for a bit - I listen to Garrison Keillor on the radio. I-91 to Hartford, and then Cheshire, CT where Mary lives. (about a 3 hr drive) It's always good to see her, she is so sweet to have dinner ready, and her husband Bruce joins us as we all chat and have a good time talking at the dinner table, and more wine in the living room. Her kitty, Elliot, passed away since my last visit, he was 16. I am happy and peaceful and in a much better place emotionally than I was in January. The next day (Mon) she drives us to Guilford on the coast and we do some shopping and eat at a Thai place for lunch. I leave her some books to ship back (I always bring and buy too many books to haul back!). I love seeing the coast off Long Island Sound.

We drive back past Sleeping Giant State Park and she tells me the legend behind the name. Sleeping Giant was a Chief who enslaved many people and he ate a lot of oysters (oyster harvesting was in the area, and still is) until he ate so many that he bloated up. He is now the mountain that is in the area. The environment was destroyed, the people were enslaved, the oysters were over-harvested. Many lessons here, still going on today. Maybe someday Mary will come to Minnesota, she has never been here.

Hartford airport is nice and cozy compared to Minneapolis and I breeze through security and wait awhile before my flight. Slowly come back to my other world, make a few calls to friends and family. Landing in Minneapolis it is 95 degrees and sunny - wow, it's hardly ever nicer here than where I'm coming from, and I take my time getting home. Step off the light rail onto Nicollet Mall and walk the 6 blocks to my apartment downtown. A band is playing at Peavy Plaza so I sit a bit in the heat with a brat and an iced tea and enjoy the downtown scene. I am grateful that I have a good place to live, and the front desk people are feeding my cat, Cleo, when I am away. She is, of course, happy to see me when I walk in the door. I sit on my balcony and say hi to my neighbors and we make plans to get together soon for dinner, something I've been meaning to do for a long time. The next day I will visit my sick friend, my boyfriend, go to work in the evening....but for now I am back home and I am content. Life, the vortex, trust it.

Photos taken by Jules in order of apperance:
1. Bennington Commons
2. Jan Johnson and Jules
3. End of the World rocks on campus
4. my feet
5. Green Mountains
6. David Gates and Doghouse Band member
7. me with new poet alum friends Debra, Leslie, Tim
8. me, Jan, Woody at Grad dinner alumni table
9. Mary Elizabeth Lang at Guilford, CT area coast
10. me at Guilford, CT area coast off Long Island Sound


NEW BOOKS I'm reading:

"Rudyard Kipling in Vermont" (Birthplace of the Jungle Books) by Stuart Murray ISBN 1-884592-05-8

"Naming the World and other Exercises for the Creative Writer" edited by Bret Anthony Johnston (Bennington bookstore, Random House ISBN 978-0-8129-7548-2

"The Art of Time in Memoir" (Then, Again) by Sven Birkerts (Graywolf Press) ISBN 98-1-55597-489-3 (actually re-reading this one)

Out to the Vortex

Mid-January, I was back at my alma mater, Bennington College, in Vermont. I caught the last few days of the residency. I did this for a writing break, and also to get out of the midwest and reflect on my life. What to bring? Books - one for each of my former instructors. I will start this with an excerpt from each -















1. "American Prodigal" poems by Liam Rector



Toast

To memory, that enormous bowl of water.
To what we imagined, what sent us off.
To that pitcher, which poured us.

To water and to what we drink nw
Which brings us back
As though we were water to each other.







The plane, the car service, and here I am, at Tishman. 2 years have passed. Walk up the snowy path, night, stars, pines, the sky and smell I remember. Open that black door and there I am - the same benches, the balcony, faded blackboard light - Sven there, in his hat, in his usual spot on the balcony right. Memory of Liam lingers. My name is still known, familiar faces, I see Jack, sit, welcome back. He started when I graduated, now he is graduating. Journal in hand, I write while the faculty reads. David Gates reading a work he thought was no longer in progress, I am in the midst of it suddenly, yet drawn close, intimate, immediate, sex, sex, sex, "hands under sweaters", nakedness. Askold Melnyezuk works in progress about the 70's, Norman Mailer, what he stands for, the library, front lines, bedroom, "weeping while fucking was not a good sign.." Time now to hang at the bar (well student center not quite the same) no lectures due for me, I can do whatever I want. Erin calls me from Boston, a student reviewed one of Ed O's books - she thought of me - Ed has this semester off, first time in 10 years. We will do lunch yes? I forget we are 4 hours apart back home.




My first night in the Alumni House - room #1 - full moon - the trees, so quiet, 6 degrees. I walk back at 11 pm, a bit lost, the half mile at least walk in the plowed snow path the houses all look the same, and find it, around the brick garden gate, to the left...who else is here? I will find out in the morning.













2. "How We Sleep on the Nights We Don't Make Love" E. Ethelbert Miller


Space is the Place



Love is the last planet in our solar
system. Your heart crying like the
rings of Saturn. How can we believe
in stars in this darkness? I watch
the sky for your return. Inside my
hands nothing but gravity.






Morning breakfast, trek to Commons, my student id card still gets me a meal. Grad student lectures 8:30 am. Someone references the book "Poetics of Space" - poems that begin in rooms, kind of poetry architecture. I think about the color of my room when I was 10. The color of the sheets, what I dreamed my life would be.






3. "Snow White Horses" Ed Ochester



Robert Bly Watched by Elves

On snowy evenings I like to
drive downtown to place my
cheek against the steel
of the lonely midwestern mailbox.


Tonight I receive illumination
from the street lamps
as I lie in snow
surrounded by elves


lifting their arms, Salud!
Their mittens are filled with snow.
The snow is shaped into balls.
Now the elves run from a ghostly


snowplow plowing through
snow toward us. It is good
to lie in snow, seeing things
invisible to impure men.




Ed, I miss you, your cigars, smoking with you, I will again next time. It is like boot camp here again. I expect to see familiar faces of my classmates, but they are not here. I am already tired, hungry, writing, into the vortex all over again. I do not have any workshops. I cannot sneak a ride to the Blue Ben Diner. I walk to Crossett library and sit by the window downstairs in the law section to stare out the window. Anything can happen here.



I am home away from home. New friends and old. Some students seem a bit enamored that I had Liam as my instructor, they want the stories. I get to know them a bit, and know faculty more. Wine, talk, new possibilities. What happens here, stays here, we are at the end of the world. Late night movie in Tishman, "Love Song" (Cannes 2007) a French musical comedy, perfect for this mix of men/women/trans/straight/gay/bi/poets/novelists/memorists/playwrights mix of everyone where there are no boxes, it just is and is perfect the way it is. How absurd to try to categorize.



4. "Swan Electric" April Bernard



12. Opera Interlude (excerpt)

I feel like explaining something.
When I lived through those days,
my private score was always Brecht and Weill,

oompah-dark and clarinet snaky.
That man I loved had a photograph of Weill
and would claim he was his father.

We had all come to believe in them,
and knew that only they had understood us;
they had predicted us.

How tough and paradoxical and worldly we were;
how still in love with the tuneful
and the heartbroken, but that was before

we had any idea what heartbroken was.....

April and Alice sitting together, your big black furry hat...we had our semester review in the rocking chairs on the porch facing Usden Hall, the open grass lawn and the fireflies out on a June night. I was going from heartbreak to heartbreak myself, and managed to pull through those poems.

Michael Kruger lecture - visiting from Germany. "You dont' find an empty space in Europe anymore.." Translate - a worthy ambition. Notes to myself. A few hundred poems in a lifetime, a few dozen in anthologies, performances, what is to be remembered when it is all done? The Life of Letters.

Create your own opportunities. Always be Closing.

I leave on Saturday, take the Amtrak to Penn Station (layover, hook up with Star, what are the chances that we both need to be at the station?) and on to New Haven to see fellow Benny alum Mary, my Auntie M. A few days to enjoy her hospitality, in the country; relax, see a movie, and visit the Mark Twain House in Hartford, CT.

"Travel is fatal to prejudice" (Innocents Abroad- Mark Twain)

Wanda Gag house in New Ulm, Minnesota

On a sunny December day, (12.28) Kari and I drove to New Ulm to see the Wanda Gag house. We had talked about this for awhile, and I am glad we did it. Kari and I are in our writing group together and she introduced me to the Gag family history. First, we saw the Schell Brewery - the peacocks were sunning themselves!

"Herman the German" is a statue on the hill overlooking New Ulm - this commemorates the battle between the German tribes and the Romans back in 9 A.D. - the Germans won. Next summer will be the 2,000 year anniversary of this event and New Ulm will stage a reinactment of the battle of the Teutoburg Forest.

A visit to New Ulm is not complete without a German meal for lunch. Kari has a

relative that owns a restaurant so we had sauerkraut and ribs, bread pudding, and warmed ourselves with some 'chocolate' beer.

We had a personal tour of the Wanda Gag house, built in 1893. When Wanda was 14, her father died and asked her to make a name for the family. There is a nephew of the Gag family in Bloomington, but very few relatives remain, Wanda did not have any children. She was 35 when "Millions of Cats" was published, her most well-known children's book that has a fairy-tale style to it. The font of the book was hand-lettered by her brother.

At the time, in the 1930's and 1940's, she was very independent - she had a scholarship to a New York school and chose to accept it and move there (this was after her mother died) and the older children worked hard to put the younger children through high school. The rest of the family wound up moving to Minneapolis and selling the house - it eventually became a rental and had to be restored after it was bought by the historical society. Her father, Anton Gag, was also a well known painter and photographer and supported the family by painting the ceilings of many churches, and he had his own photography studio, the Elite Art Studio. Several of Wanda Gag's drawings are in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, however they are in storage. The MIA was dedicated in 1915 and Wanda and her fellow students served as exhibition guards on opening night. This was when she was going to school at the Minneapolis School of Art.

My personal favorite for her drawings is "Two Trees" a linoleum cut from 1923. (I can't find a photo on line of this print) Wanda submerged herself in nature and art theory and was a bit disappointed because she never went to Europe like some of her other friends, but she found solace in nature - this is a diary entry from June 1922 in which she describes her response to being among daisies on a hilltop:

"There is an exuberance and lavishness about the foilage that is
intoxicating and the lascivious plentitude of their form filles me with
primitivism..I want to tear off all my clothes and lie among the grasses...Or
else I want to run -- fast and selselessly...I also like to sit and watch the
forms and rhythms of the clouds and the essence-form of the trees and hills, and
I like to let my eye create compositions wherever I direct it, with curved and
diagnol force-lines, inter-relation of spaces and forms, all
complete."

(from the biography "The Gag Family: German-Bohemian Artists in America" by Julie L'Enfant, a good intro bio I recommend)

I like how Wanda Gag focused on intensifying a message - forms are simplified and distorted, a bit like folk-art. She was a bit of a surrealist - and used sexuality and the unconscious as the routes to art.

Wanda Gag had many lovers and did not get married until the end of her life, to Earle Humphreys, and only because he needed to be married to keep his job at a machine shop. Wanda died of lung cancer in 1946, but as was the custom then, the doctor didn't tell her what was going on, he told her husband and Earle never told her the truth. He left her estate a mess and died a few years later. Wanda's younger sister Flavia did some paintings of her own but Wanda was the one who supported the family and made a name for herself.

The Gag house was decorated with Christmas trees when we

visited - one for each of her books. Here we are standing in front of the one for "Millions of Cats" and there are paper cats as ornaments. I did not know much about Wanda Gag until our visit, so I am glad we went and I look forward to going back in the summer.

Imagine

December 8, 1980. I remember where I was. Senior in high school. I had never been to New York City but the world changed in that instant. I remember I had a British pen pal and we wrote letters, he was a Beatles fan; we were devestated, of course. I finally visited NYC for the first time in April, 2007 and had to stand at the Imagine memorial. Every year I remember.

Imagine

by John Lennon

Imagine there's no heaven

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one

Thanksgiving Trees

Sometimes answers come in the most unexpected

places. This year I decided to cook a turkey and all the trimmings even though things didn't turn out like I had originally planned. When the turkey was in the oven I took a walk outside - trees always cheer me up. The photo is of one in the middle of the city. A friend came over and we had dinner, and it wound up being a wonderful evening of good talk, good food and good wine. That happily surprised me and reminded me of the many good friends I have.

A few days earlier, on November 24, my mom emailed me that their first born son would have been 50 years old that day. He is the one I wrote about in my poem "First Born Brother" that was published in Salamander journal. Some things untalked about release other things into the world. I called my best friend - he got it immediately, how life works like that.

The holidays this year will be a time of healing and change for me. Change, because they don't always work out as planned. An answer came in a very unlikely place today. I was watching Season 8 of "Magnum P.I." on Netflix - the final season where Tom Selleck as the Ferrari-driving private eye Thomas Magnum reveals once and for all if Higgins is none other than Robin Masters himself. I remember the TV series well from the 80's, but never saw the last season. In the episode "Transitions" Magnum says - "The only thing to count on in life is change. Transitions are hard. But don't be afraid of transitions. They make you strong."
Throughout the episode, tidbits of advice are doled out:

Change comes at an inconvenient time.

HOW you make transitions are as important as making them.

Finish up whatever you are working on before moving on to the next thing.

Change - you can't hurry it, even though you want it to go faster. It moves on its own time.

You can get so caught up in changes in your own life that you don't always notice people around you going through change too - stop a moment - and once you do, notice. Give friends some help with their problems and in the meantime your problems seem to have a way of working themselves out and even if they don't at least it reminds you that you're not th e only one who is trying to sort things out.

Thanks Magnum for a great Thanksgiving message for me! Healing comes through change - sometimes the Universe has something better in mind than what I planned. I am making peace with situations, friends and loved ones. My boyfriend and I may no longer be doing the same things, but he is still my best friend, and although I don't know how to label it, all I know is that we are talking, going through change. So even if things aren't the same or as planned, the Universe usually has something better in mind. I just have to be patient, try not to rush it, and notice.

First Snow

I woke up today to this view - yes, a dusting of snow to go along with the cold.

My boyfriend and I "broke up" on election eve - unexpected, but the signs were there. Time has been passing slowly and swiftly for me, processing, grieving, and now rebuilding. Times of silence, finally talking it out, feeling the pain out, reading, writing. When we talked a few days later, he told me of the poem of mine that said his feelings, the one I wrote a long time ago and almost forgot about. Can we still be friends? Yes. But things will never be the same between us and my life is now moving on, changing seasons with the first snow.

When I teach one of my writing classes, I reference a poem from Yuko Taniguchi, a Minnesota poet, from her book "Foreign Wife Elegy." I won't list that one here, but reading her book again I discovered this one, that is appropriate for now.

Practice

"But trust the hours. Haven't they

carried you everywhere, up to now?"

-- Galway Kinnell

I.

I practice piano and repeat scales one hundred

times every day because what we do today

becomes tomorrow's harvest; practice makes perfect.

Bach's prelude drops layers of voice all at once.

Over and over, I practice until I realize that the sound

full of sorrow demands a complete

separation from the pianist

full of sorrow.

II.

Walking into the dark tunnel alone

at night frightens you, though you may

overcome this fear if you practice

this every day, or you may never

overcome it like the terrible emptiness

inside you; it does not make you stronger.

III.

All the living that you did

suddenly seems like practice

for dying, but living is not supposed to be

a rehearsal for death. We are never ready

for departure, but the curtain is wide open

with lights shining on the stage. You are getting up

slowly. Soon you will walk away from us

as if to practice walking

for the first time.

Yuko Taniguchi

The world rejoices!

All I can say is wow - I thought it might happen but was very nervous it wouldn't and now it has. I watched the television for awhile and then had to get out into the world to be with others and celebrate this historic moment. I voted for Obama in the caucuses back in February - and yesterday went to the same school to vote again. I showed up at 7 am and the line was around the building, waited over an hour but well worth it. The world will know what America is again.

excerpt from Langston Hughes' Let America Be America Again:

(thanks to facebook friends)

O, let America be America again--

The land that never has been yet--

And yet must be--

the land where every man is free.

The land that's mine--

the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--

The steel of freedom does not stain.

From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,

We must take back our land again,America!

O, yes,I say it plain,

America never was America to me,

And yet I swear this oath--

America will be!