I was cleaning up my hard drive when I came across a poem I wrote after reading Camille Paglia’s wonderful book about poetry, Break Blow Burn. My background is engineering, so I haven’t exactly been a big fan of poetry in my life. About the only poetry I can remember reading is stuff written by different women I dated during the ten years between my two marriages.
So, that should give you some idea of how much the book affected me. I read it backwards, starting from her fantastic explication of Joni Mitchell‘s song Woodstock. After getting steeped in all that symbolism my subconscious exploded and the poem came out.
The poem is below. (Hat tip to my niece who clued me in on the term False Profit).
It starts with the fall of the Berlin Wall, progresses through the go-go Nineties, on to Clinton‘s fall from grace, Gore‘s failure, and the evil Bush‘s rise, without mentioning any of that by name. It ends with a chilling image from Katrina. It was done before the Folly in Iraq became the sine qua non of progressive poetic expression. But that’s already been well taken care of here.
False Hopes
Bloody bricks crumbled and the dreaded red flag fell
Astonished, our over eager optimism dreamt a millennial peace
Sugary songs of bullish, dotty communicators sent our senses soaring
While golden fountains flowed
Even the profligate potentate’s pockets bulged
Maybe, just maybe, our children would see the garden . . . No.
First, the King lost his sword and spilled the beans after turning in
Puling hounds chased after him, licking up the mess and nipping his knickers
The Regent’s time had come and gone
His favorite son divorced his regnant life and married the preacher
But still no one liked him
Reborn Jesus conserved the Buddha, yet forced his way
In flowery places by counting to five
The Arragator burnt our bridge and took us for a ride
Setting the stage for it all to come tumbling down
Rockefeller steals the baby’s rattle while the straw man is set ablaze
The False Profit, full of flatulent afflatus, keeps fulfilling the final days
We gag
On rank retchings
Of righteous lies
The stink of rot and ruin floods through
Sweeping the Bloated Body
Of our dead dream onto deserted streets
