THEME: Poems for Poets, Swords for Swordsmen
So last week in the Slam, u/lin_seed made me a nice long video, and I wanted to take this week to respond to it properly.
It came at a time when I was grieving the recent death of Seattle music legend, Mark Lanegan. It’s weird to have been a fan of grunge music in my youth, because so many of those musicians have died now. Mother Love Bone, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, and now Screaming Trees all lost their front men at relatively young ages. So I was feeling sad nostalgia for the days when I loved what was on the radio and I had been playing Mark Lanegan’s song “I am the Wolf” on repeat. Then when I saw linseed’s video, despite his propensity for telling jokes and having a good time trekking around Alaska with his beautiful malamute, this song and my morose mood all kind of combined in my head and I wrote this odd poem to present to a poet. ...
Of Wolves and Corporatists ...
<Jungle_Toad sings>
As I travel on, memories of youth recede out of view
I'm getting old,
my bones are cold,
and I'm unimpressed with horizons new
You know how it can be when
you start to feel alien
for a culture you once thought was you ...
<All sing in chorus>
I've observed the times and I've observed the seasons
I've obscured the waters. Well, I had my reasons.
I stretched across the triple world with my aged accretions.
No one's ever even heard
this wisdom's spoken word
It will all be as forgotten as the Phoenicians ...
<Calypso sings>
I am the wolf
Hermit for a pack
Concealed truth long ago
I’ve survived
On another’s antler
And on Odysseus’ boat
All I know is that porcupine’s sting
That’s more than you patched robes can bring
Look at peasants’ hands if you want to know their kings
Who came this way before ...
<linseed steps forward and everyone shouts>
Oh no! He threw his staff on the ground before a corporatist! ...
<linseed’s verse>
Where’s the dharma? Quick, give me something to point at!
No, not a YouTube link, you rube! I won’t anoint that!
Your Netflix brings brigades of bad content ‘til aesthetic space is disjointed!
I mean, it’s technically dharma, but I kinda feel cheated and disappointed.
Now I know you’ll say “either you’re with corporations or against them!”
But if they made a good product, then I wouldn’t have incensed them!
Oh Netflix user, you streamed polarized fights right into your psyche
Now you can’t seem to hear me, so go take a hike, see
Like me!
Or carry on, sweet corporatists acting out a slap fight with new agers
(stay tuned: forthcoming Ode to Green Sage) errr…
Now…. Where was I? Oh yes, dementia!
The trick is to never leave your mountain in absentia
Keep your mindground fertile, and you’ll be wiser than the intelligentsia
I learned from my father who retired and played accordion for five years
No one needs to worry about ya when you’re laughing and smiling ear to ear
So I express my gravity and tell jokes to an apple in my hand
About facebookers afraid of books and praying to pillows for the promised land ...
<Jungle_Toad and lin_seed sing in duet>
Some try to be swordsmen by harassing poets
And being crusty to guys who make jokes about baking
Some want to build a personal silo though it's
Just a place to die alone in a hell of one’s own making
But never mind them.
All poetry is disinformation,
and if you know it
The literary world is yours for the taking ....
<All sing in chorus>
I've observed the times and I've observed the seasons
I've obscured the waters. I had my reasons.
I stretched across the triple world with my aged accretions.
No one's ever even heard
this wisdom's spoken word
It will be as forgotten as the Phoenicians Quick! Everybody put a dinosaur’s descendent on your shoulder and give him a cracker! Now where did my tea cup roll off too now… hmmm….
Submitted March 12, 2022 at 06:07AM by jungle_toad https://ift.tt/jhJRkza
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