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I AM LOOKING FOR A HERO
america i am
looking for a hero who i can look up to
a hero who can stand on his two hind legs
a hero who knows how to pick his fights
who knows who he’s fighting for and why he’s fighting
and loves the people he’s fighting for
more than he loves his fists or his face
more than he loves the sound of his own voice
i am looking for a hero who is not a hyena
a hero who can admit it when he’s wrong
a real live hero not the cartoon kind
not the campaign kind or the football kind
no apologists or bigot or braggarts
no country club grinners no gun-toting fools
no radio rabid mouthpiece men
a hero who can get up in the morning
and break open a pair of eggs and fry them
and wash his face in a prairie stream
and look himself straight in the eye
eyes like a pair of circling hawks
circling each other in the enormous sky
with mud on his heels and a chin like a silver dollar
chin like a monument chin like an escarpment
a hero to save the farm and unhand nell!
face down the evil forecloser!
with his whiplash shoes
his whiplash sneer
with his whiplash cape
with his damaged skin
and banker’s hands
a hero who will stand up to the evildoers
who growl at the widow and tie her to the tracks
no limbaugh in his talk show armchair
no limbaugh in his easy sneer
with his get out of my way!
get out of my way!
their right to plunder their right to win
their right to take and bulldoze and bully and toss away
mouthpiece of thieves! conservator of greed!
who steals from the people and feathers their nest?
who smirk and laughs and waves their flag?
who walks across the bones of the weak
the hardworking the lame
the homeless the poor?
i am looking for a hero
who will stand up for justice
not just the freedom part
let justice ring with freedom too!
in the name of free enterprise
in the name of the constitution
in the name of the american dream
freedom to blunder! freedom to take!
freedom to dig from the land and to not put back
freedom to redistribute into their own hands
and to gut-snatch the tundra
in the name of oil
i am looking for a hero
with a chin like a mountain chain
eyebrows like wild goats
ears like mountain streams
and a couple of mountain climbers
with their ropes and cleats
climbing along with them
no chow me down no watch me work
no gator up or eat this sucker
no schwartzenator
no set in the helicopter seat
no shoot us up some arctic wolves
a hero in his chaps and jeans
a hero in his birkenstock shoes
dang i shouldna et them hotdogs
dang i shouldna killed them injuns
dang i shouldna stole that land
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