Not P but Beat: Lawrence Ferlinghetti Centennial Interview

[Allan Balliett]

Ferlinghetti has a new book coming out in March to commemorate his
hundredth birthday. He talks about it, the state of American and the state
of San Francisco, month other things here
<http://www.documentjournal.com/2018/12/lawrence-ferlinghetti-on-the-old-san-francisco-his-new-novel-and-his-first-100-years/>
.

Here's an old poem of his, sorry, don't have the date, but it's probably
from the Nixon-era, making it a deomonstrtion of Trump as a logical
"evolution" of American politics, not a malignancy that appeared out of
nowhere.


“Pity the Nation” (After Khalil Gibran)

‘Pity the nation whose people are sheep
And whose shepherds mislead them
Pity the nation whose leaders are liars Whose sages are silenced

And whose bigots haunt the airwaves Pity the nation that raises not its
voice Except to praise conquerors
And acclaim the bully as hero

And aims to rule the world
By force and by torture
Pity the nation that knows
No other language but its own
And no other culture but its own
Pity the nation whose breath is money And sleeps the sleep of the too well
fed Pity the nation oh pity the people

who allow their rights to erode
and their freedoms to be washed away
My country, tears of thee
Sweet land of liberty!’

-Allan in WV