allen ginsberg has been described as an "olympian" of a ranter, and in this piece he is at his finest. "america" seems to be the unravelling of a mental knot. or rather he is simply playing with it, examining it from all sides. he doesn't seem to answer his own question because he is not sure what he is asking, either of himself or of america. i think this poem is an attempt to express humanity it its most bare, taking its clothes off in front of the mirror of the self. he emits his thoughts as they occur, each line both stands alone and functions as some integral part of a greater idea, or some step in a convoluted process. like pynchon, ginsberg seems to address the trappings of humanity in the modern world by attempting to express the confusion directly. he is trying to reconstruct the culture of both america and his own mind, so that he might examine both of them and understand what is happening. he is, as most human beings are, a study of paradox. he is at once both disgusted with america and her past atrocities and her current insane obsessions (go fuck yourself with you atom bomb," "i'm sick of your insane demands", "when will you send al your eggs to india?" "i say nothing about the prisons nor the millions of underprivileged..." "save the spanish loyalists," "the russia wants to eat us alive") and yet something keeps him from simply decrying america. perhaps it is the knowledge that america nonetheless gives him a pulpit to stand on, a place to shake his rants into the wind. and of course this is not good enough for ginsberg. for this same america has outlawed communism, has made the word and the idea a platform of fear and control. america has destroyed its own citizenry with war and economic destruction. this sense of confusion and disillusionment is expressed very neatly in the poem, with varying degrees of playfulness and dread. he seems to address america at points as though speaking to an emotionally cold lover who cannot share ginsberg's ideas about beauty of life, and seems unable ot hear his pleas.
i disagree with brendan's post that this poem was not well written. I found it rather apt at expressing the sort of existential and emotional dread that came about from the generation following world war two, and i find that this same sensation may still be applicable today. though it is true that ginsberg does live in america, a country that grants him the freedom to write poetry (though the publication of his early poems such as "howl" was almost halted over charges of lewd sexuality), he recognizes that still millions of americans are without a voice ("him make indians learn read," "him need big black niggers," "i still feel sentimental about the wobblies"). he recognizes that there are still many things to be fought for, including the culture that is destroying human values and turning them into a commodity ("are you going to let yor emotional life be run by time magazine?")