mothers day, 1914
[a belated note] to the presidentfrom the generation labeled “X”
Dear Mr. Pres.:
Thanks for the proclamation
On the eve of a great war
An invitation to display flags
A memorial to grieving women
A bitter hardship to commend
invented with
Skulls Bashing,
the machine war.
I am generations away
Not inconceivably far
yet on the other side of things
You probably predicted
The boys who returned without boxes and legs
without motor skills or souls,
their minds shackled to trenches and rats and
the high speed of steel.
They earned medals and monuments
Pity, acclaim
flag merchants got rich
bombardiers got women for a while
poets moved to Paris.
Old people call me carefree, numb, uncaring,
overeducated, maybe underemployed.
But not you, Mr. President.
You took the future seriously.
You worried we would slander you.
You worried over war
the slanders they carried.
Some bright sons climbed on top of the Great Generation.
You doubted the possibility
long before they got better hardware.
You saw light bulbs, talking machines, airplanes, feature films.
You liked cars.
Humming machinery
before it made you sick
before dying was unfashionable
before driving was pure
before
unionists were radicals
kids were cool, youth was spent
And today.
Mothers,
wrapped in alphabets,
Ambiguous
wonders
what happened
to celebration
Deafening clamor
a good show
Incoherence a state of mind
less sickness,
for which there is a pill.
Depression is a web-site
Divorce a television show
Efficient poets
Scientific poets
Canned laughter and
laugh meters
why would a person counterfeit?
Lie to his mother.
Grow mad in a nuthouse
I learned
only in the container
that bore me
holds me when
I shiver
We never tire of irony
Pointing it out
Doing our part for the global community
Serious poetry embarrasses us.
As does the act of one speaking for all.
As do letters to the president.
As do working-class conservatives
As do the homeless
As does repetition
As does Depression
And so does history
And bitterness
we commend.
4 Comments
globatron
May 17, 2010Is this a letter to Woodrow Wilson? It seems that you are making references to Word War One.
And what do you think of Generation X Logocentric. Being born in the last year of that generation I used to be proud of that fact. Now I am wondering what exactly that generation stands for if it ever stood for anything.
I do think that generation is in a good place to not only teach but learn. Old enough to know something and young enough to not know everything. Open enough to admit ones ignorance but closed enough to not be run over.
I read your poems several times before commenting because it takes me a while to begin to wrap myself around them. My work is so straight forward compared to this. You work makes me think. thank you.
These lines are very Gen X:
Depression is a web-site
Divorce a television show
Efficient poets
Scientific poets
Canned laughter and
laugh meters
We have created so much and yet continue to feel so empty.
Akbar Lightning
May 17, 2010another beautiful piece of work…i like the moments where aspects of modernity are presented in ways that loopitty loop context.
before dying was unfashionable
before driving was pure
before
unionists were radicals
women faked orgasms
people whined they didn’t have a pot to piss in.
logocentric
May 17, 2010AL: thanks.
G: i think you’ve got it right, i mean how i feel about gen x, or what i think it is. i won’t give you a dissertation on it. the poem seems to have done what it was supposed to do.
logocentric
May 17, 2010p.s., to dissertate just a little: the last year of birth for gen x is around 1980, according to some who spend their time calculating such things, so i don’t think you’re one of the last, g.