America the Beeoutifull
by Harold Grebunski (Dale Neibaur), 1974
God bless this mess
(For what it's worth,
And Heaven knows that's small.)
God bless our "sea to shining" world ...
God bless us one and all.
God bless the oil we don't have;
God help our wheat to grow.
And if it grows in Russian soil, well ...
I guess that's how things go.
God bless our cars, and make them go
On Faith; we can't buy gas.
And Lord, please shrink the world a bit
Since we can't drive as fast.
God speed the sun up just a bit
So it rises in early morn.
With daylight savings I can't see
When I wake, and it makes me forlorn.
And as for food: I know, dear God,
We don't live just on bread;
But meat, good Lord, is hard to find.
And fish is full of lead.
And why did Dicky mess up milk?
That's an unAmerican thing to try!
I bet if we don't stop this now
It'll next be apple pie!
God bless our Henry Kissinger,
We all think that he's neat.
Yep, straightening out the Middle East
Was really quite a feat ...
Except we're very tired of war.
So help our volunteer army men
To keep their noses out, dear God!
Why must we help Israel win?
Please bless the men in Watergate
And hide their sins real deep!
Because we're sick of scandals, Lord,
And trials put us to sleep.
We're going to miss our Agnew, Lord,
In this stainless steel land of the free.
So bless our plastic minds, dear God,
And let Ford have a better I.D.
[The more things change, the more they stay the same. This poem was written in the midst of a mideast oil crisis. Prices were surging, and the resulting economic shock had pushed the US economy into a recession. Inflation began heating up, and prices for most goods were 'frozen' at a certain level by the government. Speed limits were lowered to 55 mph nationwide, and daylight savings time was introduced to save energy. The Russian wheat harvest had failed, and enough US wheat had been shipped to the USSR to cause a dramatic rise in bread prices in the states. The Watergate scandal was in full cry, and Spiro Agnew had resigned as Vice President. Nixon selected Gerald Ford as his new Vice President. Ford would eventually replace Nixon, then pardon him.
The sentiments expressed here weren't necessarily the way I really felt about the world around me. But Harold always was a cynic.]