Cool

 

Cool like amazing

Cool like attitude

Cool like football stickers

Cool like a pen that can write in ten different shades of the rainbow

Cool like the kid in your class who can sketch anything

Cool like watching someone’s dad build them a tree-house

Cool like sunglasses worn indoors at all times

Cool like the dirtiest joke

Cool like a sneer of cigarette smoke

Cool like the booze stash at the bottom of a fifteen-year old’s wardrobe

Cool like liberal parents who don’t mind wild parties

Cool like obscure brands of trainers

Cool like explicit lyrics

Cool like being Seen at a sell-out concert

Cool like refusing to remove the unexplained talisman round your neck

Cool like you are and they’re not

Cool like meaningless art

Cool like media students portraying heroin

Cool like sarcastic wit

Cool like Sunday dinner on a Sunday

Cool like films with subtitles

Cool like carving enigmatic statements into your forearm with a penknife

Cool like machine guns taking out a shop full of innocents

Cool like a poet not afraid to spill his mind

Cool like rock gods smashing up hotel rooms

Cool like the picturesque view from the peak of a mountain

Cool like snorting cocaine through Monopoly money

Cool like ironic picnics in your twenties

Cool like mental illness

Cool like always being in the red

Cool like having gay friends

Cool like a phone that’s also a camera that’s also a bottle opener

Cool like doggy style

Cool like the best birthday present you’ve ever received

Cool

It’s cool

That’s cool

She’s cool

Cool like a stunted vocabulary

Author's Note

I guess this is an attack on several things:
1. How irritating mainstream culture and its 'sheep' can be
2. How ambiguous the word 'cool' is
3. Loss of innocence as we get older
4. How people admire things from a distance that they technically disapprove of

Let me know if these four aspects to the poem are clear, and anything you don't like about the poem.
Thanks.

NB: I say 'cool' too much, thus this poem is an attack on myself as well as others

Reviews

[JR]

Ok, as for what you were shooting for, thematically, I think you nailed it. This has a lot of sarcasm� a ton of sarcasm. But that comes across as a method for showing the inherent fallacy of "cool." So much of this is ridiculous� "Cool like swearwords in songs," "cool like refusing to explain the talisman round your neck" (my personal favorite," "cool like sunglasses worn indoors at all times." But yet all of that happens, even though all of these, alone, mean nothing in the grand scheme of life. Why the f**k are they "cool" actions? They just are� and I think this poem drags them into the light, points a finger at them, and laughs.

Even the repetition of the word "cool" heightens to portray just how empty that word really is. I wonder about the etymology of that word� Did you know the term "hip" became fashionable because heroin users would shoot into their hips? Hence, "I'm hip to that." So I wonder how cool became cool�

Suggestions:

"Cool like having tickets to a concert everyone wants to be at �"

Ending on a weak word like "at" kills the line. Shoots it dead. Is it the music the empty people want to hear, or is it that they just want to say they were at the show? If that's the case, maybe something like this would work better:

"Cool like having tickets to a concert where everyone want to be seen"

Or something of that ilk to put the kibosh on the "at."

"Cool like a sneer of cigarette smoke."

No suggestion with this one. Just wanted to point it out because it's goddamn images like this that make your writing so f*****g strong, and the reason I keep coming back to read. There's so much in this�

"Cool like the best birthday present you've ever received �"

I would either drop this line entirely or move it up in the poem. I think the sexual reference as the last line is so important and powerful to the construct that it would be best if it was the last "cool like" reference the reader gets. Think about it� why do we wear shades inside? Why do we give a s**t if someone thinks we're cool? It all comes down with the instinct that we need to be liked, right? And why do we want to be liked? 'Cause we want to get laid. In the end, our need for "cool" is an ingrained mating instinct, the idea that the entire earth needs to be populated with our genetic strain. We think we're so cool� but in the end, we're just meat with seed.

Good write. I think you met all your goals, and the "cool like" sure gave this a lyrical feel and progression all it's own. I will definitely be thinking of this for the rest of the day� especially when I next use the word "cool." Heh. Cool like you, cool like me, eh, C?

[The Tao of Bri]

what a funny and poignant poem. I say cool al ot as well.. being a boy form the 80's I like awesome, rad, and ROCKIN' as well..never was a tubular type...
What I really like most about htis poem is the progression of thught which seems to signify "maturing" as your friend said before... and also how this can be seen as a superfical fun poem and then the depth that can be easily gleened from it (social commentary etc)

I also really like the viusal vignettes

[Nik Dendera]

I occasionally use that word, it must be said. But my speech tends to be peppered with other four letter words...

I think this poem is exactly what its meant to be. You've got the point to it to kick you in the head just when you're lulled into a false sense of security that this poem has no real point to it.

Nicely done. You've got all four aspects covered. And yes, mainstream culture is irritating. I'm stuck in between chavs, emos and Shawdich Types. Kill me.

[PianoandPage]

this poem is really.... (hmmm what's the word i'm looking for? oh yeah...) cool.

lol. i'm just joshin.

i agree that we often just throw out "cool" as a sort of "everyword" and it almost ceases to be a positive expression. these days it's more of an amorphic phrase that lets us say nothing about everything.

i think this poem is good. the phrases carry your unique sharp wit and the phrases are turned nice and just a tad tight.

my favorite "Cool like snorting cocaine through monopoly money"

that's a great image.

the end was a little preachy but a sermon i agree with.

[Spoken]

this gave me a chuckle in spots. Creative way to show people how uncool cool is.

Cool like a phone that's also a camera that's also a bottle opener

lol

I love the way you've ended it also. Funny cause I was reading some things going yeah that's cool, then other things I was thinking why does he think that's cool? Then I read the ended and went.. ooooo.. lol