Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in gatodeldiablo's LiveJournal:

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Wednesday, July 30th, 2008
1:55 am	Tilted Geese Tilted Geese Domestic, of course, these white, Great, fat, honking birds, Waddling across grass fields, Begging for scraps, Not knowing they don’t need the Hand-outs. In the mornings, a groundskeeper throws them Too many too-cheap bread crumbs. They caterwaul and charge the man, Jabbing at the ground with their beaks, A hundred hungry spear-tips, taking. After, they plunk in the water to Steer their bloated selves like boats with Thick orange rudders. (Geese are made for grass. The bread-food collects as fats, fast, In their front and,) They tilt forward, awkward, Always capsizing frontward. They crawl out then, wet, and Walk slow, grazing. Their wings could break the groundskeeper’s legs. Their wings could fly to Mexico, free. But the birds’ bread-chests are too heavy, Their orange legs just wiggle forward, Their wings ignored, Only unfolded in rare flashes while Threatening a passerby, Begging for more. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, November 15th, 2007
12:21 am	"Vegan On The Beach" First time I have ever, ever written dialogue/monologue/dramatic writing. I love the format now. <3 Read, plz? ( Read more... ) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
11:04 pm	Greenfeet My tired freak-feet step on alone Along the shore, six toes on each, Their legs and body left far behind. They plod thick, like green sacks of sand, Ankle bones sticking out the top, Making footprints, avoiding turds. Geese bother them, fluffing out their Wings to try to seem much bigger. My feet can't see, so they're not scared. (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 11th, 2007
7:25 pm	Artemis and Pan The lonely hunter got bored and sat down Under a granite overhang. She put her bow and arrow on the ground Then tied her hair back, worrying. She was tired of tracking and stalking, Didn't want any more pursuits, Was sick of drawing them in by talking. Her aim was simply too acute. Wasn't there something much harder out there? She saw a nearby water spring, Took off all her clothing and got in bare, Leaving behind all of her things. She didn't really need the hurried hunt, Or the food and fun it entailed. She decided to pull a bizarre stunt And live strong alone- but it failed- As she was doing laps in the clear pond, A goat-legged fellow came by. Seeing this woman for whom he was fond, He opted to act on the sly, Aiming her bow and arrow at her chest, He fired a chance shot that hit. You're sure you want to hear the rest? It's a snap to submit. They hitched. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 4th, 2007
7:40 pm	Watch Them Watch your wants and loves fall away. Watch them slip through your fingers and turn into silk water and flow away on their own, forming beautiful rivers and carving canyons out of the world you fear so much will harm them. They don’t get harmed so badly, everything twisted just splits their flow before it comes back again, after going down miles of soaking, complex forest hills in little streams and seeping sponged bunches of wet they eventually fall into deep clear placid lake basins. No algae grows in them. They are blue and clear and beautiful, and fish live in them, and eagles sit on nearby mountains and dive in sometimes. This is what they wanted all along, your loves. They wanted to sit there out of your hands and have eagles dive in. You will pine, and they will just sit there content, forever. They will evaporate and rain on you and your tears, your hands will reach to catch both and they will drop off before you can even suck them down into your stomach where you know they will be safe. Until you pee again. Your loves do not need you. You need them, but they need a big empty basin to rest in while you stalk their shores, melancholy. You stare at the eagles jealously. You bend down to suck some water in, trying to lose your footing, trying hard to fall in and drown forever. What you would do to tie yourself to a rock and drop it into your loves and never come back again, your skeleton eventually settling to the bottom of the floor where fish will eat the snails living on it. And the fish will be eaten by the eagles, that are now even that much better than you. And your loves will outlast all of you. You bend down to try to suck some water in and are quenched, for a while. But the lake is not your office, you must get back before lunch break is over, little lady, or your boss will be mad. Your loves still stay there while you work, letting little boatmen skid on their surface while you sit at your desk, doing things for other people who you do not care about, hoping to not pee out the water, watching the clouds of condensation outside your window, wishing they would stay in one place or move and just decide already. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007
2:06 am	Door-to-Door Word Count: 1738 Genre: None ('Literary' or 'Humor' perhaps) A girl has to make a decision in the house of a Republican National Comittee member. Based on my experiences going door to door canvasing, fundraising for the Democrats. Please critique. Update: 9/26/07: Third draft replaced second draft. Differs a lot from the first draft. ( Read more... ) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 12th, 2007
12:35 am	Moths in Buildings Corpses of dried out husks, Litter on the floor like Forgotten packing peanuts. Looking for tree sap or pollen, They fly in an open window, Going towards the halogen glow. They find televisions, books, Beds, computers, radios. Catch it- throw it out the window, Eek! Quick! Why do they fly in here? They belong in the trees! Huge rectangle trees with spots of light And no living sap inside. Bright! Pink! Red! Yellow! Patches! Fly toward it, flowers? They land on dresses with floral prints. They put their mouthpieces in the stitching. They starve. Smells like fruit to eat! They fly towards it. A girl coats their wings with Herbal Essences Fruit Essences Hair Spray. Unable to fly, they twitch and die, A day earlier than they were going to, Lifespan cut in half. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 13th, 2007
6:15 pm	Steaming Roots I love eating food that reminds me of imagined ethnic ancestors. Great family-sized pots of pirogies from my great aunt Sloshka, Steaming hoardes of boiled sausages from grandma O’Sullivan’s recipe. The oompah-oompah of gypsy polka klezmer fills the crowded kitchen in my mind, As dead relatives in saris, rosary beads and babushka scarves scurry around the kitchen, Yelling in German and Swiss and Chinese- Getting great-grandma Chen’s dumplings off the wok before they burn, Making sure Nana’s Stolen has enough butter and sugar to keep us all warm through the old-world winter. We laugh in Hungarian, we cry in broken French and argue in angry Spanish- Don’t let Uncle Augustus start his German debates, Quick, Shove a samosa or a blintze in his great, craggle-toothed mouth. Particles of the refried beans and sour cream dip get trapped in his mustache. We gather around a menorah or altar, Praying to some God or or Prophet or Gods for a joyous Gung Ho Fa Choy or Feliz ano Nuevo or tanenbaum- I know I don’t have to worry about maize, squash or tobacco, those are other peoples’ memories, Those belong to the absolute dead out in the West. All I have to do is breathe in the smoke from an ethnic restaurant, the one with the hookahs or maybe that’s a smoked sushi bar, And suddenly I’m transported back to the Lower East Side Tenements, among yelling, struggling, fresh-off-the-boat ethnic ancestors, Either related to me by blood or by my Great, Hungry, Varied, Novelty-seeking New York City gut. (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 4th, 2007
10:18 pm	Oh Great Lake Erie Shoreline We come upon the beach, Stick-claws in our gloved hands and find, On the sand and amongst the boulders on the shore: Shards of plastic, some small some long- “Beach whistles,” The name for discarded tampon applicators- Tucked under stinking dead fish and Styrofoam cups. Oh Great Lake Erie Shoreline, we salute you, You of candy wrappers, Juice boxes, Broken pencils, metal fishhooks and Rubber worms; You of Sea glass with edges so sharp and new it’s called just Broken bottles. Oh Great Lake Erie shoreline, You are a vacationer’s dream: Better than the seas! For you are Free of pesky salt and full of Sacred wildlife, Mostly sand beetles, Zebra mussels, Yellow-jackets and above our heads some- Look! The avians take to the air! A seagull, a pigeon, a great-breasted grebe. Now look down, something else is perched on the Collection of shore boulders: A rare light-breasted loon! It’s not moving, and it smells horrible. It’s more than sleeping. No matter that! For you, Lake Erie Shoreline, Bring us a cornucopia of curiosity, A regular menagerie of ephemera Both great and small, natural and man-made on your Lunar tides: Broken toys, Bits of metal, Condoms, Discarded dentures, Old diapers, Hypodermic syringes. Oh shore, Let us breathe in the scent of your fish corpses as we work in praise, Let us organize your collections for you, Let us Make arrangements for all we find. We know what to do with your thousands of donations of Driftwood, We can work with your Drift-stones, drift-bones and Drift-Styrofoam. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006
11:27 pm	Modern Iambic (Note the Semiperfect Rhythm) When you come back to me I am a hemophiliac: Too deep a love to leave to rot, No matter its attack On pride and faith and want and mind That taught me how to scab all wounds 'Cept those that burst out red for you, When platelets morph to useless disks That flow and show off shame, regret For ever wanting anything To-do, with-you, My self-inflicted scrape of man. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006
4:43 pm	Skinnydipping: A Lovely Rhythm-Poem I have never before written a poem based almost entirely on rhythm, with easy, palettable rhymes. But here is is. If I was a singer, I'd call it lyrics, and if I was black and allowed to say such things I'd call it a rap, but I'm neither, so it's just a rhythm-poem. I'm going to memorize it and read it aloud at poetry readings, and try to make more of these. Skinnydipping Can't live without love, Can't walk without feet, Can't swoon with the brain, You have to get deep- Deeper than comfort and custom allows, Dipping your body, dropping your brows, Till you wind up messy, battered and sore, With a grin on your face as you walk out the door; Another try ventured, another loss gained, Pilfered with pleasure, grinning in pain, Waiting to have it all happen again- So your eyes can get bright And your mind can go dim, Fluttering, falling in chaotic spin, - Above the rest, The absolute best, The warmth of a heart Closer than close, When what-you-feel, what-you-live Matters the most. So don't be a cynic, Don't doubt it or hate it, Realize it's sacredness, Hold it and keep it- It is the best, This world or after, No matter your doubting, Or their jealous laughter. Current Mood: loved (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 10th, 2006
12:34 pm	Dry Spell The clouds tempt, Drifting by the arid fields in chunks of many, They tempt it, the land in drought that asks for rain- That reaches up with tendrils of dried-out corn stalks, Now near cactus-looking. As the fields brown They get used to expecting nothing from Those teasing clouds above That promise water yet yield just air. The earth swears the sky must be finicky As plume after plume of white moisture Float miles above the thirsting ground before Quickly leaving, Like awkward guests exiting a party they've lost interest in. Where do these clouds stay to drop water? Further West, of course, to the lush rainforest valleys Which get it constantly. These fields, though, are at times lush and vibrant, Filled to overflowing with green, moist life- Till the clouds stop stopping over. After a decade of neglect The fields notice their shit luck's more than just shit luck, So they reform themselves, deciding to become a desert instead: In time the peat soil turns to sand And the plants become leathery-prickly. Soon the clouds spot the cacti Now sprinkling the fields in lieu of crop. Amused, they stay lingering to look, Obliviously letting loose buckets of rain and Cacophonies of thunder. Small desert lizards hide under rocks, Harsh scorpions find shelter from the drops underground. The clouds look around after, Confused as to why the air currents let them stay here Raining for so long, not knowing why they stormed. They swiftly flee the scene Returning to their old well-loved rainforests, Embarrassed at their unexpected release of fluid Over this unimpressive and undeserving brown, dry landscape. The fields sigh, Wondering what to do with all the mud and flooded-out desert plants. The cacti consider being corn again, and go along with it when The lizards agree to turn into salamanders, though Not sure for how long they could remain as such, They cling happily to possibly short-lived puddles. All hope for no more sunny days. The farmers buy irrigation systems just in case, but The neighbors can't stand the noise of them Vibrating All day long, Spreading out fake water, Harming the soil, Helping the crops. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 30th, 2006
8:51 pm	Martian Words First piece of fiction I have written in a WHILE. Based on reality, old reality. Tried to make it as realistic and non-romantic as possible, even though it's about romance. If that makes any sense. The characters, well, you'll get to know them, but this could also be called 'A Young Neurotic Scientist and a Young Male Idealist Fell in Love' ____"Those pajamas are beautiful." ____"They're missing two buttons on the bottom and I lost the replacements, so they show off my hairy belly-button. I need to get new ones." ____"Your belly button is perfect." ____Sarah stared at Keith. ____"Perfect, like, 'nothing but God himself is perfect' perfect? Are you saying my body is celestially pristine?" ____Keith needed no time to think of a response. His words were creatures alien to this reality, too pure and real to fit into anyone else's conversations, and, like crystal Martian antelope they broke free out of his mouth, trampling the end of Sarah's sentence with rhythmless hooves. ____"Your body is celestially pristine." he said with world-warping honesty. ____Sarah blushed and shook her head in mock doubt. She did know he utterly believed every good thing he said about her and it made her feel flattered and beautiful- but there were always those nagging doubts, the fears that he was blinded or stupid and that his kind words could not be trusted, that no matter how much he believed them he, surely, must be a fool-in-love and must be mistaken. ____She inched closer to him on the bed until their bodies were as close as two clothed bodies could be. There was no empty space between their fabric. She wrapped her arm around his head, her hand almost patting his cheek, and she kissed him softly. She then pulled back till she could focus on his face. She began to feel inexplicable tears form in the back of her eyelids. ____"Oh, don't cry," he said, his face the portrait of caring. ____"-I'm not sad." she said. ____She was getting lost in his features, the sheer honesty of his movements and the legibility of his expressions, the intense unorthodox beauty of him, and tears simply started to come without her expecting them. Tears of joy, of disbelief at how this man she was wrapped around could even be real. ____How could someone so impossibly relatable and compassionate even exist in the modern state of things, where the most at-risk trait was decent personalities? In bouts of logical reasoning while keeping in mind Occam's razor she had come to the hypothesis that it was all an act- all a ruse put on to win women over, a dishonest and inforgivable lie to get what he wanted- but she knew like Monarchs know their way to Mexico that it was all real. Improbable, Impossible, and real. ____The fact that he wasn't pretending was the hardest positive piece of information she had ever had to wrap her overthinking head around. She had over time come to truly comprehend many awful things, the learned tragedies that slowly turn children into adults, tear by tear. When her Grandpa died she finally could grasp the inevitability and permanence of death. When her divorced parents fought she was fully tought the negative sides of every basic human interaction. When she read Adbusters and various zines, watched The Corporation and talked to poor vagabonds on the street she had gained an understanding of the pervasiveness of gross social and environmental injustice. But never before had she gone the other way on the street of worldview development, never before had she been forced to comprehend something as bafflingly beautiful, as celestially pristine as this: real, deep, vibrant, human-to-human romantic love. ____Her mental circuits were in overdrive. If she wasn't careful, this could warp her permanently. (Comment on this)
Monday, August 28th, 2006
11:57 pm	Humanitarian Pigeon Herding There is a heartbreakingly lonely pigeon trapped in the subway tunnels. One Day We tried to help the subway pigeon Escape! From its unnatural cement caves. We bought lots of top-of-the-line bug nets, A very strong organic wicker cage, And got recruits- 5 teens, 1 adult, 2 vets. We had to first make sure we captured him fairly. Ethically, we had to wrangle him Till he succumbed to our compassionate control, And we could show him what he didn't know he wanted: __The outside world __Where he could frolick and twirl with the other rock doves __In sunny perfect crowded sidewalks. After weeks of careful planning, Dozens of ethics training workshops and a myriad of Expert Opinions, We finally set off. Descending into the public transit abyss We looked like soldiers of fortune, Smelled like ideals and homeless subway piss. Right away we could hear the sad little coos- He was quickly spotted. Jim tried to catch him first, and he flew- Down the tracks and out of view, Behind a column, though, As Phil's swipe toward it did show, When he took off again, This time flapping further down the way. Erin scoffed and Katie coughed, Both unsure what to do Now that they realized we hadn't a clue About the ways of pigeon herding (Despite all the training). Lacking for knowledge but brimming with passion, We tried again, Now in a more organized fashion. Phil scared him over to Laura _Who chased him to Sarah __Who swiped at him, ___Causing him to go directly into the net of Alex- ____Whose net he promptly dodged _____When he smartly flew a left-instead-a-right And landed On the other side of the platform, Across the tracks from us. Now was time for the final flight fight. Yes, we could hear the train's warning horn, Yes, we clearly saw its headlights shining danger, But more important! The bird! The poor stranded pigeon whose very freedom depended on our heroics-! We thought faster than light and With nets lifted high we Leaped Across the tracks- A gap of 10 feet! And 7 of the 8 of us made it unscathed. Sarah masterfully caught it in her net and-! The despondent critter was saved! We gathered round as she put him, __Squirming and feathers flying, Into Jim's cage. Joyfully we cheered, laughed, Patted eachother on the backs. Meanwhile Phil was screaming From under a 20-ton train car. He never fully jumped across the tracks (Didn't judge the distance right) And the train hit him-going fast. Once we found the perfect habitat for our charity case And let the majestic pigeon out into the urban wild, We shed a tear of joy, Then went back to Phil (who was now a tad riled) And tried to calm him down, Though when Erin accidentaly stepped on him He just screamed louder. We were so happy about the pigeon that We didn't mind the sound. After all his surgeries were completed We asked him if he had any regrets. Though his speech was now depleted From what mumbles we could pick out from his mangled jumble He seemed pleased, proud, and glad To have helped show that pigeon the freedom he was destined to. From his wheelchair now battered Phil watches the birds Fly past his hospital window. He claimed a few weeks ago that he saw our pigeon in flight- He was tattered and dusty, But wild, Proud, and Free. Though just yesterday There came a claim From our Jimmy that our pigeon has Returned to the tunnels again Where he rides on the trains, Happy to have the place to himself- No sunshine, grass or companions- And no competition for food, An easy life of little light. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, August 18th, 2006
3:17 pm	All Natural Ingredients I am electric, Digital leaves falling from circuits. I am sylvan, Organic wires transmitting pulses of sustenance. My veins coarse electrons and dirt Through your metalic devices and back To my own hungry mouths- Now tainted with cadmium-mercury. I'm your origins, Your plaything, Your consequences, Your ends to all your means, Your beginning of want. My roots enravel in all your best laid plans. My mice and dandelions and cars scamper On your cracking concrete. I even take you back, Starched nylon fibers succumbing to my will Even after your flesh comes. All your physical things are me. Plastic is the son of rotted ferns, Steel the offspring of minerals. If you had brains enough to discern, It's all natural, 100: organic, The entirety of everything, Chemicals and formulas be dammned, The entirety of everything is me. (Comment on this)
2:46 pm	When the Radios Scream Sympathy If all this ended and began again- Don't take it personally. When the world splits to pieces, When all the continents shift toward eachother, And cities and suburbs fall like stacked cards, There will be news reports on death tolls and broken hearts, Journalistic humanistic pieces on the suffering, __the crying, the proverbial holes- Pullitzers will be prolific at the end of the world. This WILL occur. Only a matter of time Till a supervolcano, A-bomb or asteroid finds Our unharmed little planet And decides it's high in need of something drastic, Catastrophic, fantastic. When all this happens- When your eardrums are blasted By loud yelling radios Crying of dead bodies, pale and flaccid... When all this happens, Do yourself a favor And don't take it personally. Everyone'll be crushed by the destruction, Even your own loves, friends and family, But it's not a blow directed at you especially. The world's end's not an insult. When the ground beneath your feet crumbles, And civilization's machinery's all eaten by rust, See it for how it really is: You may have been less or more lucky than other people you knew, But in the end, despite all radio's blabbing, don't forget: You all have one good friend who never fails to pull through: Your never-failing buddy, the great old Dust-to-dust. (Comment on this)
2:28 pm	Heliocentric Fevered, sweating, she feels that: The brightest star in the sky- _____That she once did pray to, _____That she once did embrace, __But has now grown to post-ozone strength with her worship __And has now has begun to sizzle the ground- Must be ignored, be ignored. The sunburned girl must pretend That there's always an eclipse By holding a carboard cutout of the moon against the beating red rays That come at her hard from the burning mass of gas, the sun, in the vivid sky. She must substitute the blue background color for black And search for scattered glimmers, New little stars, Finding tiny pinpricks of what she needs Behind her now closed eyelids... They stutter open again as she awakes from dreaming. In time she notices that really night has truly come. When she waits longer for the rising of the sun, The real one- not the red one she remembers from the dream but the real sun, It's a total different color: White. With less harsh radiation, And not a tenth as close as she dreamed it to be. The cardboard moon was imaginary, The sunburn just a fancy. She thinks about opening her arms in embrace of these new refreshing rays, But she chooses instead to walk on plainly, Using the brightest star as everday illumination, just as you or I would, Not worshiping it as she did the Reverent dream-sun, Just using it, Using it plainly. (Comment on this)
Saturday, June 17th, 2006
12:07 pm	Chagrin Falls The river of time flows backwards In the small town of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, Keeping all that unsightly progress out Of this safe little pocket of vintage views- A slice of life, a polaroid Of America's now lost homeland values. Quaint as a cherry pie Cooling on a windowsill, Picturesque as the best Of Kinkade's painted watermills, High-class as a porsche Cruising between McMansions, Exquisite as fine fair trade Sun dried gourmet food passions, Exclusive as a country club In the midst of trial season, As racist as a Klan rally, (Just richer, quieter, and with a little bit more reason). This is the whitewashed paradise From Republican's wet dreams, The neo-con Jerusalem The end to all their hopeful means. I swear the houses are spotless And the people's shit smells like flowers. A place where a family can truly thrive Without fear of crime rates, Happy and simple in a communal hive Of like-minded, nonthreatening busy bees. The parents gloat gladly and thank God That they have enough cash to survive In this sick, sad black-infested, gay-filled, God-losing Liberal atheist Jew commie welfare world- How nice to have found some insulation, A fall-out shelter, From this post-bomb, post-war, post-modern Post-enlightenment Babel, A comfy town to clutch to tradition for the sake of itself, A place where your thoughts are always right, Since there's no one around passionate enough To stand up, point forward and loudly pick a fight. (Comment on this)
Friday, June 16th, 2006
2:58 am	Request for Proof of Kitten Homicide You've been put aside long ago- Left to disintegrate into the past, (Finally, as) it took oceans of shock, Obligatory buckets of tears To be able to leave you there, Without any dangerous holding-on to any Hope-infused Delusions for the possible future. Then, today, while going through my old things- Dust flying off the remnants of yesterdays- I come across what was left of you After time and forced grief had reduced (that percieved galaxy of you I imagined fitting into so well) After time and coping had reduced it to nothing more physical than crumpled photos and folded up letters and articles. At an instant's glance at one of these images- as soon as I made eye contact with this small black and white picture of you- Claws of the past scratched at my skin, And those giddy and beautiful old feelings poured into the (once-again open) wounds- In a rush And I panicked- I wrapped a band aid of sanity around them And quickly, scared of my own soft, deep heart, Blocked out the incoming gushes Before too many rays of flower-scented thoughts Could get in the slits. My heart rate soon slowed, the picture was put away for safe keeping, (But not till after I tried to dissect its lines and values, tried to see it as ugly, and failed). I wish I wasn't such a woman of opposites with this seemingly just-right more-than-just-a-dandy who once meant everything to me. I wish I could more easily See you neutrally, for, as it is, I begin to strongly like him again when I simply think of him for any amount of time. IF need be I can change my attitudes, By focusing on the negatives: The low self-esteem, the hatred of our only communication media, the strongly polyamorous nature, the sex drive too large for me, the substance use different than my own, the occasional lack of sympathy, the cocky attitude sometimes seen in relation to his mind, but mostly, the hatred of too many things that comes from an unpleasantly elitist and overly-pessimistic world view- Well, that's alot of negatives, That's quite a long list- but I need more to never, ever fall for him again. Someone, please find a photo of him at a Klan rally, Someone please send me a recording of him arguing against gays and environmentalism, Or at least proof of him shooting a kitten- Please, someone, please someone give me one good reason to hate him, So this on-the-fence, easily tippable Opinion of him Can never again go so far into positivity That it ends up ranting, raving, madly in tainted, lovely, hopeless love again, As "Bob" knows I've had enough of that To last this (at times) idealistic youth a lifetime. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, May 29th, 2006
5:45 pm	Canned Memes in Neat Packages Museums- those keepers of all things worth keeping- Are collecting records of average human gene lines. And small collectors, now, grab more than fossils and rare coins- Try retro Coke signs, tattered cowboy jean loins, Intact instant Jello boxes from simpler days- Any old thing still in its mint packaging, Now worth a buck, thanks to eBay. Without discrimination, anything older than 'now' Is reworked, reseen, reloved, copied. Easy to see how: We collect seaglass: Battered old pollution tumbled up by agitated waters. We pluck it out from amongst the sea grass And marvel, spectacular, at how it warps the gamma sunlight. Artificial hues (From imbedded chemicals) Frosted to shine, To the point that now our children confuse These chipped and rounded shards for gemstones. They grow up to revere it as a sign of natural beauty, This beach-found trash that we put high on our windowsills, As though these mutated pieces of industrial waste Were gifts of nature's gorgeous grace. Not only older, but newer, We also cherish the recent past. Especially in movie box offices: Remakes of dependable old faves, remake after remake, Till at last the youth don't know the originals at all, So they can grow up to remake them again. We tend to Wring it out, hang it up, polish it with Scotch-Guard and sell it to the screens To sit in front of submissive adults, kids and teens, Since They'll all spend money, even if their eyes get sore from repeats, And their minds get famished-starving- from lack of creativity in media. Perhaps the ideas seen out hanging on a clothesline Are the best signs of these retro-heritage times: Look at that pants style, popular now, and in the 80's too, when it was modelled after the 60's, when it was modelled after the 40's...and so on and so on, infinitum... In a world based on commerce, We don't remember the past, We collect it and sell it, Mixing up lucky mistakes from before with beauty, And remakes for originals, shrouded in the novelty of fake newness. Why, after all, make a whole new garment When you could instead just trim, hem and darn it? Creativity, thought, innovation: These take too much risk in these deadlined and tight-budgeted times: So we stick to what's simple, Boring, predictable- but easy- Till our artists' brains all atrophy And our consumer tastebuds turn sour, Till we're looking at a 90's Wal Mart parking lot For grace and inspirational power. (Comment on this)