Wicked World

ON THE SUPERFICIALITY OF ARTHow can poetry beanything besides deceit?How else can poets adapt to emptiness?When the masters discoveredhow meaningless the world is,naturally they were disappointed.So they responded with irony, satire,putting on airs, all kinds of tyranny.Some even went mad.Nowadays we usually just bingeon topics urgent as our selves,our longings for justice and a stable home.Meanwhile the world keeps behavingaccording to its god: change?meaningless, inevitable, merciless change?obedient to that god’s twin commandmentsendless death, never-ending generation.Watching their children grow, every fatherevery mother already knows this . . .this renewing emptiness.Beyond joy. Beyond sadness.