America the Beautiful

I’m walking down Main Street

Hustling for spare change

Wishing people wouldn’t

Look at me like I was strange

Got my dog and my rain coat

My cardboard box

Don’t need much these days

Don’t need no locks

America the beautiful

Home of the brave and free

America the beautiful

How could you ever...

Turn your back on me?

A woman walks toward me

Five dollars in her hand

Stuffs it in my cup

Trips over a grain of sand

I know I’ll never see her again

Anytime later or soon

But tonight in my newspaper bed

I’ll dream of her under the moon

America the beautiful

Home of the brave and free

America the beautiful

How could you ever...

Turn your back on me?

Some things you’d like to forget

Like how you got to where you are

Some things you regret

Some things have simply gone too far

First tour of duty

I came back lucky to be alive

Fifth tour of duty

A land mine took my eye

But I could still see in my dreams

Bombs bursting like fireworks

Body parts raining down

On foreign dirt

America the beautiful

Home of the brave and free

America the beautiful

How could you ever...

Turn your back on me?

Now I’m going to crawl off

Sleep under a bridge somewhere

Out of sight, out of mind

Going to vanish into air

And hope that tomorrow’s the day

When I wake up

To find that red, white & blue...

Rainbow in my cup

America the beautiful

Home of the brave and free

America the beautiful

How could you ever...

Turn your back on me?

America the beautiful

Home of the brave and free

America the beautiful

Land of peace and prosperity

America the beautiful

God shed his grace on thee

How could you ever...

Turn your back on me?

© 2010 Britta Lee Shain