American Dream

D'you see that hot air balloon?
That one with the flag and the false dream?
The one that fathers take their sons to, saying:
"You can reach as high as that, son!"
But then the child grows up and realizes --
The hot air ballon doesn't reach very high at all,
And the sandbags are falling one by one.

And now the man is old and the sandbags have fallen
And he finds himself in a nursing home in Florida
With the gifts of social security and a nurse at his side.
His teeth have fallen and his memory has faded
But the flag stand tall in its delusion.
And every Independence day the man raises it up to the sky
But he doesn't see how just like the hot air ballon --
It doesn't reach very high at all.

And when the man dies and is buried under
All of us would be left to wonder:
Why his last wish was to be wrapped in the flag
And to cradle his one last remaining sandbag.