Lift twist bend release

I sing

Sweet dreams are made of this

silently, maybe

the machines are so loud

I could be screaming

without drawing a crowd.

 

Up by the bootstraps

pound of the heel

Mr. Laffer’s curve

runs away from here

past the ones in the middle

the country held so dear

to recessionomics and atomic fear.

 

All that’s left of those billboards

they put up in the 50’s

of the dream and the car and the 2.5

is the photo I saw in the library

and the dreams our fathers keep alive.

 

Lift twist bend release

the guy next to me sent

by football coaches

some college in the south

of some renown

to slim him down

bulk him up

So we move like twin arms

of the same common brain

one after another

or dancers

with a 3 second delay

He drinks gallons of water each day

I sing

 

Sweet dreams are made of this

screaming and not drawing a crowd

The Soviets said they had a plan

yet now they’re meeting with the actor man.

 

Lift twist bend release

Ten hours in a tin can

in a hot summer when it was not yet morning

in America

not in the Midwest

not in this factory.

 

–Danny Grosso