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Tag: modernism

Generation Gap

You call yourselves Creatives,
seekers of some brave new world
where the light of tomorrow shines
and everyone is free,
constructing some great paradigm
connecting one and all
across the universe and time
through some technology.

You call yourselves Inventors,
sculpting from the gossamer
of heretofore undreamt of dreams
and other precious stuff –
iconoclasts, revisioning
the way the world should be:
unleashed from simple here and now
across eternity.

You build as if your raw supplies
were part of nothing else:
a world of waste and sloth and darkness
waiting for your touch.
Pretending it some virgin spot
you dig with pre made tools,
imagining your destiny
replaces nothing much.

And those with whom you disagree?
It’s obvious they’re old,
and harbor shadows of the past,
their light hurtful and cold.
If their ideas made sense,
why did the world end up this way?
That they failed, is no fault of yours;
they did what they were told.

And those who straddle old and new,
those hopeless dinosaurs
whose shoulders you now stand upon
without a word of thanks?
You graciously allow them space
to try and tag along,
while you refuse suggestion
as you scurry to the bank.

Creative? Without toil and sweat,
your art is fantasy;
a game of smoke and mirrors
where you hide your snob’s distain
for those who came before you,
whose creations you transform
into the shiny, plastic things
you promise will again

invoke some metamorphosis,
turn all frogs into kings,
relieve your halitosis
and give back your bounce and spring,
improve your sense of wonder
for a reasonable cost,
and make you feel you’re where it’s at
pretending you’re not lost.

30 SEP 2014

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Imago: a decastich

Show, don’t tell, the modern critics rave!
Let solely image drive the poet’s art;
so that this generation weaned and fed
on television’s drivel won’t complain.

Describe in such a universal way
that anyone with half a brain could find,
within a flash, some personal motif
illuminating their sad, pointless life.

What else is the whole point of poetry?
Who cares? Who still has time to enough to read?

12 DEC 2012

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jazzum backclash

bitwing bedbug housefly arcnet
kurt’s looseleaf tea rolled convenient
hard times coming four and more
‘s miles and coleman, hat stove in
screen door strained looking for peaches
can’t, recall, died in the poorhouse
out-of-come forsooth and spittle mood
john thomas passed out drooling
somewhere in the last hash chorus
i lost track; the extra change
is all you can spare for poor stella.

great danes dogging swedish meatballs
cremate the meaning and the d.s. al coda
parker’s lighthouse dimmed and mist-infested
no more than twice through for the maestro
’twas enough why more than necessary
evil improvisation masturbation
somewhere i lost track of structure
engineering
yardbirds caw give the heave ho
yardarms outstretched
enough of this can’t take it:
please take off
that album;
stick a fork in its ass,
it’s done.

1993

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