My rivals, the old poets, I cut loose
the other day. I was too modern for them.
I couldn’t believe it: overnight, things were new.
Art became wildly self-conscious and strange.
I laughed at “Home, home on the range.”
Keats was one I didn’t need to stand up to.
Good poets could be forgotten.
We got out those records and danced.
Advertising on skyscrapers. Life was amazing.
We wrote skeevy poems. Johnny was rotten.
I blasphemed God by blaming time.
Truth was on vacation. So was rhyme.
Evolution happened all the time.
The strong poets were radically new.
The middle classes
eventually tossed the old poetry, too.
New, new, new, new, new.
I blasphemed God by blaming Tom.
Despite being humble, he thought he was better.
He was to blame, Tom.
A sigh for hate and a sigh for love.
Tom didn’t care about time.
He made fun of the new.
Nothing he said made sense
but once I thought what he said sounded true.