NICKELODEON

Have 20th century
hangover in change
jars good American
change while paper
in denominations
of one million per
square toiletroll
size fills the empty
dreams of Romanians
with numbers not much
else certainly not
sausages on a grill
with new wine in love
in let's say 1965
when nothing not even
communism could stop
the sap from overcoming
the ballyhooed and now
forgotten curtain
I had a youth once
I was very good at it


NO TERROR NATIVES UPSET

It goes the century
perversely uneventful
not a moneymaker
to the news-media
no adrenaline-pumper
for the masses
the very opposite
of the grandeur
we have come to expect
from this bomb-maker
pants-shaker of a century
when great poets died
but fear not in this
milenium we resolve to defend
our work against the over
whelming mediocrity
of mainstream American
poetry no longer to bear
the shame in this other
wise rich culture we
say enough academic drivel
we are taking back
the music goodbye hello

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