Bringing Home the Bacon
The grey artillery squad with the rusty cannon
argue which spiked bullet will slay the young
beasts that rear their heads;
“
Rushdie? Wait, wait, who is he?
Use Hemmingway; they’ll kill themselves.
Fire, Virgil,
Plutarch, and Melville, we know the names,
all sure to Bohr them deathly still.”
Long they argue, high and shrill, not knowing what
they seek to kill.
All the while the breach lays empty.
But if a new sound, new text, new speech,
rears a young head, the grey crew cries;
“Take aim!
Marx the range! Swift to the gun!
We see this face is far too young!
Locke and load, with Sterne inside,
a new upstart we Kant abide!
To Dante’s hell, we’ll Hume him Twain!
Re-Joyce, Re-Joyce, the head is slain!
Let none remain! Take Pope!
Take aim!”
The world sits with father time, waiting
for grey crews to fade and canon replace
with guns that inquire before they shoot
a new face.
Brice Bitter
January 8th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Excellent work! I’m still chewing on the wording of the last stanza. I can’t quite get the ‘canon replace with guns’ to sit right. I must not be putting the emphasis in the right place. I need you to enlighten me.