The popular exploits the simple
which ends up being the death of it.
A bang of excitement. And now there is none.
Why God? Because there is.
The solution you find
is the basic one.
The opportunity presents itself, to be
different from all the other poetry.
You take it. The ultimate
statement of naked
in a divided social climate.
A generation later, we laugh.
What was cool now seems ridiculous
and yet it still remembers us
as being that at that time
when not only Aunt Myrtle but Byron could rhyme.
The game show jingle, the roar of the crowd.
Rap lyrics. Every rhythm is allowed
when presented in opposition
to what-was-but-is-now-the-object-of-derision.
The same gestures, over and over, again.
The clapping of hands. Speed. The rude.
Are the chords of “Yesterday” the same as “Hey Jude?”
The once famous songwriter, sixty years on,
taps something out on a computer:
Is that Beethoven?