From Big Bang to Columbine (to Virginia Tech to Sandy Hook and on and on and on...)


I wrote the first version of this poem in 2000 as a response to the Columbine shootings. It was an attempt to draw the connect between the U.S. culture of mass shootings to the country's history of conquest through murder and brutality. I believed then, as I believe now that when you found a nation on genocide you can only expect those who grow from it to engender violent impulses. I had hoped that 12 years later this poem would no longer be relevant. 


…Paroxysm of rifle shells spilled onto cafeteria floor emit steam,
delivering epiphanies swiftly like a microscopic aftershock
from a rock tossed in a lake causing ripples in time.

The cries cripple ancient spirits.  Newspapers rape a mother’s
cries for the sake of headline glory.
Stories of children who spent the evening air
summoning psychic ghosts to deliver them
answers to their math tests are soon running frozen,
screaming,
chosen to be locked inside their own
icandescent terror as film strewn upon a newsroom floor.

Horror coalesces into hip fantasies.
Film producers seduce grieving parents in a mission
to obtain copyright permission.
Websites are shrines built to worship chaos in cold steel,
fired with a click-click from the finger of sick children
picked on one too many times in the back of class.

Decadent demagogues in decades hence will 
deify these two as defiant descendants of the conquerors
demanding your surrender as shots ring out,
sting ears, castrate compassion,
orchestrating an ode to the Big Bang
as the hollow children take aim and squeeze…

And in the distance
For one instance
Echoing from inside their hollow shells
The dancingearthchildren whisper prophecies the conqueror never tells
Bellowing

“We will rise we will rise
To stare right through into the whites of your eyes
We will rise we will rise
To peel off the lies in which you disguise

We will last we will last
Long enough to erase you with your own past
We will last we will last
To bury you inside the images that you cast”

And in the distance for one instance silence precludes a shotgun blast…


…Blown away like minds in altered states
or winds traveling east to sweep away
the blood and filth of the nation state.

The benevolent equate their catatonia
to a utopia concealed by the commotion picture industry.
They steal feeling through B-rated movies
Moving as real ammunition,
spinning in lieu of reels of film
where parents place blame on video games
and the Squalor of rock stars
who are themselves merely slaves,
though it is the structures they’ve built
from power and profit
that carve out their children’s graves.

Jump cut to two specters
making jest of death as they watch smoke
from their barrels rise into vents to chase spirits
sent from dimensions mentioned in ancient hieroglyphs.

Guitar riffs mimic the madness of corpses
constructed into monoliths honoring
the bloodlustful cores of conquistadors liquidating
5000 years of indigenous folklore.

Across cafeteria floors prosperity sifts
through spilled milk cartons,
consummates with blood dripping
as two intersecting rivers, slipping like an arrow
plucked from its quiver to penetrate
the throats of rebellious chiefs protecting
the tribe from false beliefs and assimilation
as the hammer is cocked and released
to relieve more incarnations of their sentient duties
(And just yesterday they were
Running around courtyards
Giving one another cooties).

Bodies slump to earth like an ice cream cone
Dumped on concrete by a child’s misguided
sense of worth. Hollowness of shotgun barrels
Pierce their blank stares,
Inducing the virus as these monsters cheer
at the violence they have pioneered in laboratories.
Labyrinth of hallways now decorated with innocent gore
lead the survivors to a  a vast landfill of executed martyrs,
speared from the rear by another’s obsession with possession,
Ensnared in a false past,
fastened to fly paper,
collecting events of oppression and rule,
because murder be oh so cool
where nothing escapes but the smell
of revisionist history covering up
the misery displayed as a mural of splattered brain matter…

And in the distance
For one instance
Right before their hollow shells shatter
The dancingearthchildren whisper prophecies the conqueror never tells

And they chatter

“We will rise we will rise
To stare right through into the whites of your eyes
We will rise we will rise
To peel off the lies in which you disguise

We will last we will last
Long enough to erase you with your own past
We will last we will last
To bury you inside the images that you cast”

And in the distance for one instance silence precludes a shotgun blast…

…As any trace of aura escapes
through social studies books
marked in red tape, and bullet
holes distributed by dictators
in a benediction of hate.

Squandered spirits seeking outward,
confronted by illusions that fame
has caught them in a contusion of preemptive
memorials to their laconic destiny. 
The atomic density of the holes
in their esteem expand become
steam dissipating into a lost sunbeam.

Trapped in a post-mortem dream,
joined by a team of cult images
their parents permitted them to admire,
they serve as self-appointed judge and  executioner,
Take aim, squeeze, and fire
at their jury in a fury of pellets sprayed
as the dismayed fade in the gleam
of girls who hold prom queen dreams,
vanquishing obscene visions
adrift in hollow barrels of self appointed
gods giving guns to toddlers in place of chocolates.

Culture of conquest decimates itself
with decimal points placed on
tax forms as an illness of madness
represented in fresh gun clips.

Ships traveling westward forget to look inward,
predict the fate of the wilderness children.
Their souls swarm like locusts
unconsciously around and around.
No sound is heard as bullet
hole becomes black hole of corruption
pulling all light away from their insides

As death callously rides, cracking
his whipped with sadistic pleasure
as the distance that’s measured
between orbiting stars and musical bars,
between my voice and your mind,
between vision and the blind,
this distance between us grows wide
as swiftly death rides to collect the fallen.

He envelopes a school teacher
Reaching up to breach the security
of the eyes that are the cause of his demise
to see if there is any empathy left from which
to make Clarity or Purity or Purpose of their lives,
Only to find nothing as the
Beginning of the end arrives.

Time unbends. Wise elders rise from lost
songs to finally apprehend those who pretend and…


In the distance
For one instance
The tide of struggle shifts from low to high
The dancingearthchildren haunt the conquerors with guilt and truth

As they taunt and they sigh

“We will rise we will rise
To stare right through into the whites of your eyes
We will rise we will rise
To peel off the lies in which you disguise

We will last we will last
Long enough to erase you with your own past
We will last we will last
To bury you inside the images that you cast”

And in the distance for one instance silence precludes a shotgun blast…

They now direct the barrel inward
as if to seek out what was taken from their
by their colonizers long before they wore this frame.

Their hollow eyes slip into hollow barrel
to see blindly the conquistadors effigy
left behind as eulogy like
shadows of forgotten daughters
permanently suffused to wrecked walls
at Nagasaki stung by the taste of atomic slaughter.

These spoiled hellions act
Impressed with themselves for prophecies misread
That have mislead their hollow shelled descendants
into a sinkhole of imperial destruction.
The virus spread finally to itself.
The void consuming itself in celebration.

Only the anticipation of a muscle
contracted around trigger remains
for blankness inherited over
light years to hold residence and dominate
dimension space and color with its illness
as form resists to exist in the emptiness that surrounds it.
The offspring driven to a collective apathy
by cause and effect of celestial parasitism.
Only a cataclysm of this last hollow shell
remains to sterilize and infest while
hollow barrel is pressed against
hollow skull. Below phony phantoms
Peer and salivate as barrel is raised
to once and for all eliminate the disease,
Their fingers writhe like snakes
coiled around the tree of solidarity
as they surrender, take aim, and squeeze…

And on the horizon
The rising sun
Silences screams
Resurrecting Dreams
As the dancingearthchildren are heard chanting
Recanting their past as a lesson stressing

“We will rise we will rise
From our graves to avenge slaves to whom you denied
Freedom to resurrect neglected souls that you pacified
As the last holy war begins
Extinguishing the sins
And the people that you chained are finally unified
They will break way into the wilderness
And let out a battle cry screaming

‘We will rise we will rise we will rise we will rise
We will last we will last we will last we will last’”

And in the distance
For one instance

The sound of children’s laughter silences a shotgun blast…


The Anatomy and Physiology of a Mixtape


Side one

Track one: Something that starts off quietly then builds to righteous crescendo then fades as slowly as it began. It should be someone not too famous or obvious, but recognizable to your listener. Like Radiohead but without it being Radiohead. (Explosions in the Sky? Why not?)

Track two: A heavy guitar rocker. Something to let your listener know that this won’t be a lie in your bed and sulk experience. Options: Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Le Butcherettes, or Motorhead. You know what, just go with Motorhead. Try Black Mountain if you want to show them you're ahead of the music snob curve. But really, you need to go with Motorhead.

Track three: An instrumental track. Mood music with a slightly experimental edge. A track that asks are you really, really listening? If you're stumped just raid Bill Laswell's discography. 

Track four: A banging hip hop tune by a rapper with socially conscious lyrics. For your friend who keeps thoughtlessly exclaiming that rap isn’t art. Suggestions: Sweat Shop Union or Mr. Lif. (No Kanye!!!)

Track five: Something with a Middle Eastern or Latin influence with sultry female vocals that identifies you as erudite and cosmopolitan. Natascha Atlas, Ceu, or Omara Portuando will do, but avoid using The Girl from Ipanema.              

Track six:  A joke track. Something campy or satirical such as a sound clip from Beavis and Butthead or a stand up bit by Mitch Hedberg. So your listener doesn’t think you take yourself too seriously. If you're not the humorous type then this a place to get avant garde and lay some Einsturzende Neubauten or early Frank Zappa on them.

Track seven: Something that says but I do want you take me seriously. Drop something acoustic or symphonic with deeply emotive lyricism. Refrain from using anything by Elliott Smith (too cultish) or Leonard Cohen (too obvious) here.

Track eight: Your requisite dance track. Preferably electronic. Preferably loud. Preferably infectious. A song that you can’t help but jump around when you hear it. You want your listener to be hyperventilating as they turn the tape over. Options: Scissor Sisters, Dee-Lite, or mess with their sensibilities by dropping some Van McCoy. (Jamiroquai? Do you even need to ask?)

Side two

Track one: Your ironic track. Perhaps an old showtune or a ubiquitous pop song from the 1960’s. Refrain from using anything by the Beatles or Michael Jackson here. Recommended: The Monkees or a song from Hair.

Track two: A teeth rattling heavy metal track. Something that makes them leap to turn the volume down after they turned it up for the previous track. This is to make sure you still have their attention. Please, no Metallica. Try Motorhead. I did mention Motorhead to you already, right? Good. Motorhead it is.

Track three: Something downtempo with a lush string arrangement and synthesized drums. The track should include a violin or cello solo. Be sure to avoid using Bjork or Sade. It shows you're not really putting any thought into this thing. Instead go with something like San Ilya or Zero7.

Track four: Hip hop part two. But this time you are looking for a party anthem. Preferably something recorded before 1990 in order to communicate that you know your rap history. Recommended: Schooly D or Kurtis Blow.

Track five: Post bop jazz. This is always a smooth transition from hip hop. Keep it instrumental. Keep it up tempo. Keep it obscure. Using Coltrane or Miles Davis will reveal that you are just a tourist to jazz snobs. Eric Dolphy or Ahmad Jamal is workable, but we recommend you aim for something your listener has probably never heard (though they’ll never admit they learned about the song from you). Anthony Braxton, Bill Dixon, or David S. Ware will suit your needs. 

Track six: Raunchy, sloppy, angry punk that sounds like it was recorded in an abandoned warehouse with a single microphone. Don't you dare think about making it a Sex Pistols song. The Exploited or Crass is more what you're going for here. If your mix is already too male heavy at this point then go with the Pretenders, if you haven't already used them. And if you haven't selected the Pretenders already, then shame on you.

Track seven: You’re in the home stretch. Hit them with an extended funk track, bass heavy, with a sparkling horn section. Warning: James Brown will reveal your amateur status. (See Wattstax library.) Let's cut to the bone here; you just need to insert some Betty ****ing Davis right this minute.

Track eight: The point here is to be HUGE. Something that simulaneously communicates beauty and danger, hope and dread, simplicity and grandeur. You want your listener to lose sleep after hearing this. The song should end with a single instrument playing for a few measures too long. Sigur Ros is acceptable, but something by Meshell N'degeocello or Red Snapper will make them think about changing their religion... or giving up religion altogether. Again, no Radiohead!

Track nine: To avoid the impulse toward symmetry, insert another track. Something short and unexpected (leave at least 5 seconds blank between this track and the one before it). Some options: Anything by John Zorn, a short spoken word poem, Aphex Twin, or better still, a personal message recorded by you, the mixmaster, exclusively for your listener.

Remember to draw something cutesy on the cover with a crayon and come up with a long and weird title that alludes to something you and the listener have done together or an inside joke you share.

Also remember to pull off the tabs on the corners of the tape so that the receiver cannot record over the masterpiece you spent an entire evening compiling solely for their listening pleasure.

Fortunate Hijo (de puta)


Fortuño, strokes his tie, cocksure,
Slyly slurps down imported brew,
Simpers, then sends the thugs in blue
To stomp students for his pleasure.
Pawning off beaches to the leisure
Class, Luis preens before he kneels
To big business with pipeline deals,
Feasts on islands like baked pheasant,
Turns learned men into peasants.
He’s mastered The Art of the Steal. 

A decima to celebrate the ousting of Fortuno as Governor of Puerto Rico.

Slight Doors


He carved slight doors onto the surface of everything

Some led to rooms made of illuminated tanzanite

Some led to toy battles re-enacted across a map of New Jersey

Some led to the gates of improvised ecological preserves

Some doors chose to remain enigmatic and stubbornly refused to open

Another door opened to reveal a museum of fossilized boom boxes   

One fashioned beneath his cat's water bowl

Offered an unobstructed view of Pyxis

He installed a glass door over his showerhead

That allowed him to visit his family in Las Piedras

Soon his life was a convocation of half open doors

They became surrogate kaleidoscopes

Cunning invitations to neon arroyos

Compulsory rock festivals

A plate of asparagus

Blithe anchors

Fixed inward



Originally published in the San Antonio Express-News

Metastasis



…And still they came in legions,
platoons of madmen cloaked in velvet

and steel.They startled us out of our dream
life, gently lulled us into a deeper slumber.

To our simple eyes they were spellbinders,
orators,

magicians who thrust
invisible bullets into our

villages. The elders fell like torn
drapery while unnatural light escaped

through the cracks of a glass eye,
pouring shadows into our crock-pots.

The scepter that once stood as our protector
was melted down and made into a satellite

dish. Lifeless remnants of our children were sprinkled
onto their ice cream sundaes. Soon on Sundays

we would put our hands together and sing
of borrowed gods, ring

bells throughout the valley, stuffing
our secret selves inside

incinerators erected along the dark
alleys that swiftly littered our projects.

Orchestras of insects were flattened,
substituted by a cacophony of metal

horns and electric drills,
early morning barrack drills.

Our infinite garden became plastic
plants set on windowsills.

All the while we sit on front stoops,
unimpressed and unaware,
Passing around bottles and cheap
gossip with the smell of sulfur in our hair

until our garments clashed with our accents, our heads
displaced beneath train tracks nailed

down across holy ground. We listen to the distractions
refracted from the mouths of manufactured

martyrs, their tongues serving as the third
rail. Frail and disparate, we follow

digital red herrings out of our homelands
and into an abyss of disposable

idols who levy us to witness
the impalement of our own myths.

Today we wander along predetermined paths,
Unimpressed and Unaware,

While wealthy sycophants construct Byzantine
conversations about chimerical enemies and celebrity

affairs. Transmuted by relentless incantations
transmitted from an iron tower in the hills,   

We whittle away our days scratching
off incessant lottery tickets, waiting for the winning

numbers on the radio...

                  Originally Published in Bordersenses




Mi   R   e

(An erasure of Mitt Romney's 2012 RNC Speech)
 
 
Thank you.  Mr. Chairman, and delegates, I accept
your nomination for president of the United States.
   (APPLAUSE)
   I do so with
humility, deeply moved by the trust you've
placed in me.  It's a
great honor.  It's an even greater
responsibility.  I ask you to walk together to a better future.
By my side I have chosen a man with a big heart from a small
town.
   (APPLAUSE)
   He represents the best of America.  A man who will always
make us very proud.  My friend and America's next
vice-president, Paul Ryan.
   (APPLAUSE)
   In the days ahead, you will get to know Paul and Janna
better. But, last night America got to see what I saw in Paul
Ryan, a strong and caring leader who is down to earth and
confidence in the challenge this moment
demands.  I love the way
he
lights up around his kids. And how he's not embarrassed to
show the world how much he loves his
mom.
   (APPLAUSE)

But Paul, I still like the playlist on my Ipod better than
yours.
   (APPLAUSE)
   Four years ago, I know that many Americans felt a fresh
excitement about the possibilities of a new president.
 That
choice
was not the choice of our party, but Americans always
come together after elections.  We're a good and generous
people, and we are united by so much more than what
divides us.
   
When that election was over, when the yard signs came down
and the television commercials finally came off the air,
Americans
were eager to go back to work, to live our lives the
way Americans always have, optimistic and positive and confident
in the future.
   That very optimism is uniquely American.  It's what brought
us to America.  We're a nation of immigrants, we're the children
and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the ones who wanted
a better life.  The driven ones.
 The ones who woke up at night,
hearing that voice telling them that life
in a place called
America could be better.
   They came, not just in pursuit of the riches of this world,
but for the richness of this life.  Freedom, freedom of
religion, freedom
to speak their mind, freedom to build a life
and, yes, freedom to build a business with
their own hands.
   (APPLAUSE)
   This is
the essence of the American experience.  We
Americans have always felt a
special kinship with the future.
When every new wave of immigrants looked up and
saw
the Statue of Liberty, or knelt down and kissed the shores
of freedom, just 90 miles from Castro's
tyranny, these new
Americans sure had many questions, but none
doubted that here in
America they could build a better life.  That in America, their
children would be blessed more than they.
   But, today, four years from the excitement of that last
election, for the first time
the majority of Americans now doubt
that our children will have a better future.  That is not what
we were
promised.
   Every family in America wanted this to be a time when they
could get a little ahead, put aside a little more for college,
do more for the elderly mom that's now living alone.  Or give a
little more to their
church or their charity.  Every small
business wants
to have this be their best year ever, when they
could hire more, do more for
those who had stuck with them
through hard times.  Open
a new store, sponsor that little
league team
.
   Every new college graduate thought they'd have a good job
by now. A place for their own.  They
could start paying back
some of their loans and build for the future.  This
is what our
nation was supposed to start paying down the national
debt, and
rolling back massive deficits.  This was the hope and change
America
voted for.  It is not just what we wanted, it is not
just what we
expected, it is what Americans deserved.
(APPLAUSE)
   (AUDIENCE MEMBERS):  U.S.A., U.S.A.
   ROMNEY:  You deserved it because you worked harder than
ever before
during these years.  You deserved it because, when
it cost more to fill up your car, you cut out moving
lights, and
put in longer hours.  Or
when you lost that job that paid $22.50
an hour, benefits, you took two jobs at $9 an hour
   (APPLAUSE)
   (AUDIENCE MEMBERS):  U.S.A., U.S.A.
   You deserve it because your family depended on you.  And
you did it because you are an A
merican, and you don't quit.  You
did it because that was because it was because you had to do.
The driving home late from that second job, or standing there
and
watching the gas pump hit $50 and still going.  When the
realtor told you that to sell your house you'd have to take a
big loss on your house.  In those moments, you knew that this
just was not right.  But what could you do except work harder,
do with less, try to stay optimistic, hug your kids a little
longer, maybe spend more time praying tomorrow would be a better
day.
   I wish President Obama had succeeded, because I want
America to succeed.
   (APPLAUSE)
   But his promises gave way to disappointment and division.
This isn't something we have to accept.  Now is the moment when
we can do
something.  And with your help, we will do something.
   (APPLAUSE)
   Now is
the moment where we can stand up and say, ``I am an
American, I
make my destiny, we deserve better, my children
deserve better, my family deserves better, my country deserves
better.''
   (
APPLAUSE)
   So here we stand.  Americans have a choice, a decision.  To
make that choice, you need to know more about me and where I'd
lead
at our country.  I was born in the middle of the century,
in
the middle of the country, the classic baby boomer.  It was a
time when Americans were returning from war and eager to work.
To be an American was to assume that all things
were possible.  When President Kennedy challenged Americans to
go to
the moon, the challenge was not whether we would get
there, it was only when we'd get there.
   (APPLAUSE)
   The soles of Neil Armstrong's on the moon made permanent
impressions
on our souls.
   ROMNEY:  And I watched those steps together
on her parents
sofa. Like all American is, we went to bed at night knowing we
lived in the greatest country
in the history of the world.
   (APPLAUSE)
   God bless Neil Armstrong.
   (APPLAUSE)
   Tonight, that American
flag is still there on the Moon.
and I don't doubt
for a second that Neil Armstrong's spirit is
still with us.  That unique blend of optimism, humility, and the
utter
confidence that, when the world needs someone to do that,
you need an American.
   (APPLAUSE)
   My dad had been born in Mexico.  And his family had
to
leave during
the Mexican revolution.  I grew up with stories of
his family being
fed by the U.S. government as war refugees.
   My dad never made it
through college, and he apprenticed as
a laugh (ph) and plaster carpenter.  He had big dreams.  He
convinced my mom, a beautiful young actress, to give up
Hollywood to marry him. And moved to Detroit.
   (APPLAUSE)
   He led a great automobile company and
became governor of
the great state of Michigan.
   (APPLAUSE)
   We were -- we were Mormons .  And growing up in Michigan,
that might have seemed unusual or
out of place, but I do not
remember
it that way.  My friends cared more about what sports
teams we followed that what church went to.
   
My mom and dad gave their kids the greatest gift of all.
The gift of unconditional love.  They cared deeply about who we
would be and much
less about what we would do.  Unconditional
love is a gift that Ann and I have tried to to pass on to our
sons and now to our children.
   All the
laws and legislation is in the world will never
heal
the world like the loving hearts and arms of loving mothers
and fathers.
   (APPLAUSE)
   You know, if every child could go to
sleep feeling araft
(ph) in the love of their family and God's love, this world
would be a far more gentle place.
   (APPLAUSE)
   My mom and dad were married for 64 years .  And if you
wondered
what their secret was, you could have asked the local
florist.
   (APPLAUSE)
   Because every day, dad gave mom a Rose,
which he put on the
bedside table.  That is how she found that the day my father
died. She went looking for him because, that morning, there was
no rose.
   My mom
and dad were two partners.  A life lesson that
shaped me by everyday example.  When my mom ran for the Senate,
my dad was there for her
every step of the way.  I can still see
her as saying in her beautiful voice, ``why should women have any
less safe than men about the great decisions
facing our nation?
-- great decisions facing our nation?''
   (APPLAUSE)
   Don't you wish you could have been here at this
convention
and heard leaders like Governor Mary Fallin, Governor Nikki
Haley, Governor Susana Martinez, Senator Kay Alieanos (ph),
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice?
   (APPLAUSE)
   As governor of Massachusetts, I --
I chose a woman
lieutenant governor, a woman chief of staff.  Half of my
cabinet
and senior officials were women.  And in business, and mentored
and supported great women leaders who went on to run great
companies.
   I grew up in Detroit, in love with
cars.  And wanted to be
a car guy like my dad.  But, by the time I was out of school I
realized that I had to go out on my own.  That if I stayed
around Michigan
in the same business I'd never really now if I
was getting a break because
of my dad.  I wanted to go someplace
new and prove myself.
   Those weren't
the easiest of days.  Many long hours, and
weekends working.  Five young sons who seemed to have a need to
reenact a different world
war every night.
   (LAUGHTER)
   But if you ask Ann and I, what we'd give to break up just
one more fight between
the boys, or wake up in the morning and
discover a pile of kids a
sleep in a room -- well every mom and
dad knows the answer to that.  Those days were the...
   (APPLAUSE)
   ... these were tough days on Ann, particularly.  She was
heroic
through it all.  Five boys with our families a long way
away.
 I had to travel a lot for my job then, and I'd call and
try to offer support.  But  every mom
knows that that does not
help did the
homework done or get the kids out the door to
school.  I knew that her job as a mom
was harder than mine.  I
knew without question that her job as a mom was a lot more
important than mine.
   (APPLAUSE)
   And as America saw
Tuesday night, Ann would have succeed at
anything she wanted to do.
   (APPLAUSE)
   Like a lot of families in a new place with no family,
we
found kinship with a wide circle of friends through our church.
When we were new to
the community, it was welcoming, and as the
years went by, it was a joy to help others who had just moved
into town or just joined our church.
   We had remarkably
vibrant endeavors congregations from all
walks of life, and many who were new to America.  We prayed
together, our kids played together, and we always stood ready to
help each other out in
different ways.  That's how it is in
America.  We look to our communities, our faiths, our families,
for
our joy and support, in good times and bad.  It's both how
we live our lives and why we live our lives.  The strength and
power and goodness
of America has always been based on the
strength and
power and goodness of our communities, our
families, and our faiths.
   (APPLAUSE)
   That's the
bedrock of what makes America America.  In our
best days, we can feel
the vibrancy of America's communities,
large and small.  It's when we see that new business opening up
downtown.  It's when we go to work in the morning and see
everybody else in
the block doing the same thing to read when
our son or daughter calls from college to talk about which job
offer they should take, and you try not to
choke up when you
hear that the one they like best is not too far from home.
   It's that good feeling when you have more time to volunteer
to coach for you kids soccer team or help out on school trips.
For too many Americans, those kind of good days are harder to
come by.  How many days have you woken up
feeling that something
really special was
happening in America?  Many of you thought
the way on election day four years ago.  Hope and change had a
powerful appeal.  But tonight I would ask a simple question: if
you felt that excitement when you voted for Barack Obama,
shouldn't
feel that way now, that he is President Obama?
   (APPLAUSE)
   You know there is something wrong with the kind of job he
has done as president when the best
feeling you had was the day
you voted for him.
   (APPLAUSE)
   The president has not
disappointed you because he wanted
to.  
The president has disappointed America because he hasn't
lead America in the right direction.  He
took office without the
basic qualification that most Americans have, and one that was
essential to the task at
hand.  He had almost no experience
working in a business.  Jobs to him are about government.
   (APPLAUSE)
   I learned the real lessons from how America works from
experience.  When
I was 37, I helped to start a small company.
My partners and I had been working for a company that was in the
business of helping other businesses.  So some of us have the
idea that, if we really believe our advice was helping
companies, we should invest in companies.  We should bet on
ourselves and our advice.  So we
started a new business called
Bain Capital.  The only problem was, while we believed in
ourselves, not many other people did.  We were young and had
never done this before,
and We almost did not get off the
ground. In those days, sometimes I wondered if I had made a
really big mistake.
   By the way, I thought about asking my church's pension fund
to invest, but I didm't.
   (LAUGHTER)
   I figured it was bad enough that I might lose my
investors'
money, but I did not want to go to hell, too.
   (LAUGHTER)
   Shows what I know.  Another of my partners got the
Episcopal church Pension Fund to invest.  And
today there are a
lot of happy retired priests who should thank him.
   (APPLAUSE)
   That business we started with 10 people has now grown into
a great American success story.  Some of the companies we helped
start are names you know
you've have heard from tonight.  An
office company called Staples, where I'm pleased to see the
Obama campaign has been shopping.
   (APPLAUSE)
   The Sports Authority, which of course became a favorite of
my boys.  We helped
start an early childhood learning company
called Bright Horizons that First Lady Michelle Obama rightly
praised.  And at a time when nobody thought we'd ever see a new
steel mill built in America, we took a chance and build one in
the cornfield in Indiana.
   (APPLAUSE)
   Today, Steel Dynamics is one of the largest steel producers
in the United States.  These are American success stories.
   And yet
the centerpiece of the president's entire
reelection campaign
is attacking success.  Is it any wonder that
someone who attacks
success has led the worst economic recovery
since the Great Depression?
   (APPLAUSE)
   In America, we celebrate
success.  We don't apologize for
success.
   (APPLAUSE)
   Now we weren't
always successful at Bain, but no one ever
is in the real world of business.  That's what this president
does not seem to understand.  Business and growing jobs is about
taking risk, sometimes failing, sometimes
succeeding, but always
striving.  It's about
dreams.  Usually it doesn't work out
exactly as you might have imagined.  Steve Jobs
was fired at
Apple, and
then he came back and changed the world.  It's the
genius of the American free enterprise system to harness the
extraordinary creativity, and talent and industry of the
American people with a
system that's dedicated to creating
tomorrow's prosperity, not trying to redistribute today's.
   (APPLAUSE)
   That's why every president since
the Great Depression who
came before the American people asking for a second term could
look back at the last four years and say with
satisfaction,
``You're are better off than you were four years ago.''  Except
Jimmy Carter.
And except this president.
   (APPLAUSE)
   This president can ask us to be patient.  This president
can tell us it was someone else's
fault.  This president can
tell us that the next four years will get it right.  But this
president cannot tell us that you're better off today than when
he took office.
   (APPLAUSE)
   America
has been patient.  Americans have supported this
president in good faith, but
today the time has come the time to
turn
the page.  Today the time has come for us to put the
disappointments
of the last four years behind us, to put aside
the divisiveness and the recriminations, to
forget about what
might have been, and to look ahead to what can be.  Now is the
time to restore the promise
of America.
   (APPLAUSE)
   Many Americans have given up on this president, but they
haven't ever
thought of giving up, not on themselves, not on
each other, and not on America.  What is needed in our country
is
not complicated or profound.  It doesn't take a special
government commission to
tell us what America needs.  What
America needs is jobs, lots of jobs.
   (APPLAUSE)
   In the richest country in
the history of the world, this
Obama economy has crushed the middle class.  Family income has
fallen by $4,000 , but health insurance premiums are higher.
Food prices are higher.  Utility bills are higher, and gasoline
prices, they've doubled.  
Today more Americans wake up in
poverty than
ever before. Nearly one out of six Americans is
living in poverty.  Look around you -- these aren't
strangers.
These are our brothers and sisters, our fellow Americans.  His
policies have not helped create
jobs.  They've depressed them,
and this I
can tell you about where President Obama would take
America.  
His plan to put taxes on small businesses won't not
add jobs.  It will eliminate them.
   (APPLAUSE)
   His assault on coal and gas and oil will send energy and
manufacturing jobs to china.
   (APPLAUSE)
   His trillion dollar cuts to our military will eliminate
hundreds of thousands of jobs and also put our security at
greater risk.
   (LAUGHTER)
   His $716 billion cut to Medicare to finance Obamacare will
hurt today's seniors and depress
innovation in jobs and
medicines
.  And his trillion dollar deficits, they slow our
economy, restrain employment, and cause
wages to stall.  To the
majority of Americans who now
believe the future will not be
better than the past
, I can guarantee you this -- if Barack
Obama is reelected, you
will be right.
   (APPLAUSE)
   I am
running for president to help create a better future,
a future where
everyone who wants a job can find a job, where no
senior
fears for the security of their retirement, an America
where every parent knows that their child will get an education
that leads to a good job and a bright horizon, and unlike the
president, I have a plan to create 12 million new jobs.
   (APPLAUSE)
   Paul ryan and I have five steps.  First, by 2020, North
America will be an energy independent
by taking invented of our
oil, are coal, our gas, our nuclear, and renewables.
   (APPLAUSE)
   Second, we will give our fellow
citizens the skills they
need for the jobs of
today and the careers of tomorrow.  When it
comes to the school your child will attend,
every parent should
have a choice, and every child should have a chance.
   (APPLAUSE)
   Third, we will make trade work for America by forging new
trade agreements, and when nations cheat in trade, there will be
unmistakable
consequences.
   (APPLAUSE)
   And fourth, to assure every entrepreneur and every job
creator that their investments in America will not vanish, as
have those in Greece.
 We will cut the deficit and put America
on track to a
balanced budget.
   (APPLAUSE)
   And fifth, we will
champion small businesses, America's
engine of job growth.  That means reducing taxes on business,
not
raising them.  It means simplifying and modernizing the
regulations that hurt small businesses the most, and it means we
must rein in skyrocketing cost of health care by repealing and
replacing Obamacare.
   (APPLAUSE)
   Today women are more likely than men to start of business.
They need a president who respect and understand what they do.
And let me make this clear.  Unlike President Obama, I will not
raise taxes on
the middle class of America.
   (APPLAUSE)
   As president, I'll respect the sanctity of life.  I'll
honor the institution of marriage.
   (APPLAUSE)
   And I will
guarantee America's first liberty, the freedom
of religion.
   (APPLAUSE)
   President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the
oceans.
   (LAUGHTER)
   And to heal the planet.  My promises to help you and your
family.
   (APPLAUSE)
   I will begin my presidency with the jobs tour.  President
Obama
began his with an apology to our.
   (LAUGHTER)
   America he said had dictated to other nations.  No, Mr.
President America has
feed other nations from dictators.
   (APPLAUSE)
   (AUDIENCE MEMBERS):  U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A..
   (APPLAUSE)
   Every American...
   (AUDIENCE MEMBERS):  U.S.A., U.S.A., U.S.A.
   ROMNEY:
 Every American was relieved the day President
Obama I gave
the order and SEAL Team 6 took out Osama Bin Laden.
   (APPLAUSE)
   On another front,
every American is less secure today
because he has failed to slow Iran's nuclear threat.  In his
first
TV interview as president, he said we should talk to Iran.
We are still
talking, and Iran's centrifuges are still
spinning.
   President Obama has
thrown allies like Israel under the bus
even as he has relaxed sanctions on Castor's Cuba.  He abandoned
our friends in Poland by walking away from missile defense
commitments
   (AUDIENCE MEMBERS):
 Boo.
   ROMNEY:
 But he's eager to give Russia's president Putin
the
flexibility he desires after the election.
   (AUDIENCE MEMBERS):  Boo.
   ROMNEY:  Under my presidency our friends will see more
loyalty and Mr. Putin will see a little less flexibility and
more backbone.
   (APPLAUSE)
   ROMNEY:  We will honor America's Democratic ideals because
a free world
is a more peaceful world.  This is the bipartisan
foreign legacy of Truman and Reagan, and under presidency we
will return to it once again.
   (APPLAUSE)
   You might have asked yourselves if
these last years were
really the America we want, the America that was won for us by
the greatest generation.  Does the America we want borrow a
trillion dollars from China?

   Does it fail to find the jobs that are needed for 23
million and for half the kids graduating from college?
   Are those schools
lagging behind the rest of the develolped
world?
   And does America that we want succumb to resentment and
division among Americans?
   The America we all know has been a story of many
becoming
one. United to preserve liberty, uniting to build the greatest
the economy in the world, uniting to save the world from
unspeakable
darkness.
   Everywhere I go there are monuments and now for those who
have given their lives for America.  There is no mention of
their race, their party affiliation, or what they did for a
living.
   (APPLAUSE)
   They lived and died under a single flag, fighting for a
single purpose.  They've pledge allegiance to the United States
of America. Taht America, that united America can unleash an
economy that will put Americans back to work, taht will once
again lead the world with
innovation and productivity, and will
restore
every father and mother's confidence that their
children's future
is brighter even than the past.  That
American, that united America will preserve a military that's so
strong no nation will ever dare to
test it.
   (APPLAUSE)
   That America, that America, that united America will of
uphold the
consolation of rights that were endowed by our
creator and codified in our Constitution.
   (APPLAUSE)
   That united America will care for the poor and sick, will
honor and
respect the elderly and will giving a helping hand to
those in need.  
That America is the best within each of us.
That America we want for our children.
   If I am elected president of these United States I will
work with all my
energy and soul to restore that America, to
lift our eyes to a better future.  That future is our destiny.
That future is out there. It is waiting for us.  Our children
deserve it.  Our nation
depends on it.  The peace and freedom of
the world
require it.  And with your help we will deliver it.
Let us the begin that future for Amreica tonight.
   Thank you so very
much.  May God bless you! May god bless
the American people, and may God bless the United States of
America!