by Alex Haggis
Artwork, “Media” by Robert Pierce
Today the kids are out in force
To drink their tea in sunny places,
Wearing psychedelic laces,
Excuse me if I never see
Any meaning in their faces.
You can tell them by their talk,
Their pointless, muttering aesthesis,
Their writer’s block,
Their fountain pens
Contain not one drop
Of, I don’t know, mimesis:
Instead, I want my night to end
Where all the schmucks are schtupping;
Not where they talk about
Freud, bands, consumers,
And accomplish the exact same end
Except in clothes they bought at “Rumors.”
Cause all the schmucks are drop-dead pretty
And have bank accounts to match,
And on their pastel polo shirts
Is nary a pin or iron-on patch.
I’ll join the voyeurs,
The vapers,
The B-school movers-and- shakers,
The ones whose tongues are all a-tangle
On our very own quadrangle,
And to those who are astonished
(Who’d admonish)
Remember: when compared to counterculture,
Counter-counterculture’s less dishonest.
Cause you can choose to be a schmuck,
But if you don’t it’s all the same,
Cause an identity formed in opposition
Is still schmuckery, just by another name.