Who Knew?

Ayala Leyser

Who knew that my New is ancient?  Forgotten in 2/2014
bored faces of new generations of semi-olds
Gnawing sushi and fresh wasabi, stock value on the Cubs?
Who knew that my postcard collection will stay virgin, unstamped,
Lost in the present? Buried at the bottom of a shoe box lay the best times of my life, heavily breathing under piles of beige hand-written paper.

 

SARGE2

Who knew the Press will get de-Pressed, compressed in the folds of corporate blubber?

That mannequins will flirt of People-magazine, that LIFE will croak lifeless?

That a Kardashian ass will trademark and replace

Da Vinci Mona Lisa’s face ?

Who knew that ‘connecting’ implies six degrees of electronic separation?

That a facebook- chat is faceless and voiceless?

Who knew that the Selfie will digitize n’ sta-grama-tize the Self?

That texting – discontext, not now, nor here,

Somewhere else, in my I-head;  I Text therefore I am!

II

Who knew that Democracy is freedom to buy other people’s freedom  with money?

That free healthcare is a threat to the well-being of the wealthy?

That suicide is outlawed, but healthcare is only a privilege?

Who knew that the war is still on?  We must defend till they’re all dead.

Which God shall we hand our children’s to this time?

which God shall we heroically behead?

Who knew that guns are now carried or concealed to protect us

…from each other?

That police target-shooting now takes place in city streets?

Who knew that Gays are people, are people …that queers will point to the Rainbow of our humanity?

Who knew that Negroes are African- American now… but still Negroes?

That ‘to stand your ground’ means to take a black man off it?

That the right to move and breathe is color-coded?

Who knew that Revisionists don’t aim at revision, but repeat old mistakes?

Who knew that the gauze, weeping zithers, shepherd flutes in froth of incense, are only a product of my aging reconstructive reminiscence,

A waste of otherwise time to buy and sell my merchandise?

And… who knew that my children will step outside the inside

In search of a world without any barbwire and mean jealous Gods?

Who knew?

–Ayala Leyser

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2 Comments

  1. Carole A. Kronberg

    Who knew the ongoing boggling had so many edges!

    Reply
  2. sam4wp

    I like it a lot. As a point of contact among our various styles of poetry, I offer this from 2012:

    Who can know the future?

    Not even the wisest house cat.

    Or are they muted Cassandras,
    rendered unintelligible
    by impending dooms?

    And yet, when the waters rise, even these feline foreseers
    must seek their Noahs, beseech
    their people to flee the planet
    on fiery-tailed arcs
    before our modern Agamemnons
    unleash
    the puff, puff, puff
    of nuclear fireworks
    and military plagues run amok.

    But even now, uncertainty still reigns the reins.
    No one can know
    what the feckless fingers of
    children born of women may bring.
    No Disney, Marx or Moses can blaze our tale.

    Are our dooms so starkly written?
    A mene, mene, tekel,
    upharsin
    etched in the atoms of future time?

    Or could we 99%-ers
    burst open the Trojan Horse,
    woo soldiers to love, build a future with a future
    where even Cassandras and others foreseers
    can greet sunset
    with a smile?

    best
    sam

    Reply

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