Dream Spell Of America

Dream Spell Of America
© Surazeus
2026 01 10

Half my life ago, around thirty years, 
I hitchhiked across the United States 
of America, sea to shining sea, 
from Seattle to Denver to Miami, 
improvising grunge folk songs on the street 
as I strummed guitar Phoebus gave to me. 

I crossed east of the Mississippi River 
for the first time at thirty-one years old 
in January of Nineteen Ninety-Six, 
when I rode in her car with Artemis 
from Rocky Mountains to Miami Beach 
where I sang Dream Spell of America. 

Now thirty years later in my brick home, 
where my wife sews scenes of felt folk art, 
my kids make movies, and draw graphic novels, 
I feel exhausted after thirty minutes 
collecting branches fallen in wind storms, 
then write dream spells of American Life. 

While Whitman sang the great song of the self 
to celebrate the many in the one, 
and Berryman jumped off the bridge of lies 
to escape the many voices of fear, 
I translate them all, both sorrow and joy, 
in tangled Dream Spell of America. 

I sit with Isaiah on White House lawn, 
chanting spirit spells in thought-rhymes of truth 
to balance parallel concepts of faith 
that provide to souls of the Promised Land, 
through both criticism and consolation, 
vision for Dream Spell of America. 

When state institutions of brave respect 
provide solemn structure for living well, 
we build legal empire on principles 
that ensure freedom and justice for all, 
till we wake to fight oppression of greed 
when our state unravels in civil war. 

When fascists seize control of government 
to dismantle our education system 
so oligarchs enslave us all with debt, 
we follow messiah sleuth to design 
new ways through equal opportunity 
for everyone to work and own their home. 

Now United States of America 
transforms into empire of thought control 
so we gather in maze of fractured myths 
to sing new Dream Spell of Zarathia 
where every human enjoys civil rights 
as core for United Nations of Earth.