Wicked World

ON THE SUPERFICIALITY OF ART



How can poetry be
anything besides deceit?

How else can poets adapt to emptiness?
When the masters discovered

how meaningless the world is,
naturally they were disappointed.

So they responded with irony, satire,
putting on airs, all kinds of tyranny.

Some even went mad.
Nowadays we usually just binge

on topics urgent as our selves,
our longings for justice and a stable home.

Meanwhile the world keeps behaving
according to its god: change?

meaningless, inevitable, merciless change?
obedient to that god’s twin commandments

endless death, never-ending generation.
Watching their children grow, every father

every mother already knows this . . .
this renewing emptiness.

Beyond joy. Beyond sadness.