the blasphemy of originality

An Omnium Gatherum (My Own American Gospel)

It was all handed to me,

The American Gospel,

somewhat overrated,

somewhat underestimated,

so I handed some of it back,

pocketed what I thought I might need

- humility, sanity, beauty, maturity,
immorality, insanity, vanity, intensity,
curiosity, divinity, morality, prosperity,
vulgarity, mortality, propinquity, cruelty,
solemnity, immaturity, poverty, creativity -

to make it through a landscape of years

changing me as it changed around me,

cobbling my gods, my religion together

from what I found along the way,

following in the footsteps,

the soft tread of the America of American

poets, prophets, painters, profiteers,

the Walt Whitmans, the John Browns,
the Andrew Wyeths and P.T. Barnums,

the blasphemy of originality

informing, defining

an omnium-gatherum,

my own American Gospel.