Paint peels off the red wheelbarrow
and the mermaids are mute.
Crazy Jane takes Prozac now,
as do we all,
makes going gently into that good night
much easier.
Whose fault is it
that our walls are poorly mended,
fallen into disrepair and disrepute.
Truth and beauty are obsolete,
that's all we need to know.
Fancying yourself the last Romantic,
you are small.
You contain minutia.
You wanted to sing the body erotic
but all you did was hush nightingales.
You've never known anyone well,
least of all Yorick.
Me? I'm just here
sweeping up the shards of the bell jar.
Dawn has left us,
her rosy fingers professionally manicured,
the Dover bitch,
the lines of her changing face
erased by a face lift.
Some pilgrim soul she turned out to be.
Paradise is lost
and pleasure proved a disappointment
so we'll go no more a-roving.
Fuck Xanadu. Let's stay home
and watch the tube.
Our pasty arse poetica spreads
and grows flabby on the couch;
we'll never get the damned spot out.
Emily was right;
the funeral's in our brains.
Pound for Pound,
we come up light.
The best lack publication
and the worst mutate into
talk show guests.
Negroes no longer speak of rivers;
it wouldn't be politically correct.
The raven is on the endangered species list,
and not expected to make a comeback;
You don't want to know
what happened to the darkling thrush.
There is this small comfort:
there are still plenty
of blackbirds.
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