He strides up to take the spotlight
Bedecked in the essence
Of everything he’s ever heard,
And burdened with glorious purpose.
He starts bold, stance strong, voice clear:
“Dear Geography teacher...” he preaches,
Reaching for shared disappointments,
Anointing himself the mouthpiece of youth.
Soothsayer, truthspeaker,
A peak of platitudes and gratitude
Screwed to the sticking point of
Oxygen-stealing line lengths.
Depth! Regret! Insight!
The clarity of distance!
The angst of yesterday!
The way it fits so neatly into three minutes.
In the circle of his usual,
Mutually exclusive demographic
He telegraphs his copy-and-paste
Graces to clicks and roars.
But here, in the open,
He chokes on the silence
Reflecting the abyss that beckons his
Dissolution, resolution wavering...
Hey! No! Raise the volume,
Boom across an abruptly unclipped mic,
Dive free of constraint into the teeth
Of these zombies
Homage is lacking, blank eyes merely polite
What kind of witchcraft is this?
Hisses and shrieks of feedback greet his
Inevitable momentum across the speakers.
Time’s up and he steps from the light,
Bright with sullen flames,
And waits for the explicit verdict,
The indications of his numbered worth.
On the way home he Tweets,
Greets reality with passive aggression,
Abetted by peers sneering of
The obvious ignorance of others.
Comforted and cozened he makes his way,
Braving disappointment with denial
Wild vows aimed anywhere but inwards,
Arcing further into solipsism.
The lesson of this is... complex
But, in essence: when you stop learning
You burn your bridges into a wider life
And I... am at least as guilty as the next poet.
This started life with another stanza (“This poseur supposes/ His notion momentous/ And shows off his woke ass/ Erroneously”) but then it went elsewhere in the putative build up to said stanza, so here’s what happened instead... And yes, I guess this is written to perform, and to purge, and probably makes sense if you’ve seen a slam or two...
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