VACUUM

The air is thick with the

blue of dark, and the light

of our great beacons are

nothing more than tendrils

of dissipation.

In my lifetime,

Dali died

and Fellini too,

Picasso, O’Keefe.

Hemingway. Steinbeck,

and Faulkner are

as dead as Latin...

So are Copeland,

Hendrix, Leonard

Cohen and his ilk,

T. S. Elliot,

Frost, Sandburg,

Sartre, Camus,

and all the rest.

Our genius has fled

in self-defense.

Yeats knew

all those years ago,

We would become

reprobate, incarnated

as that Rough Beast

vexed to nightmare on our

merry way to Bethlehem

where we can slouch

in front of our devices.

Reviews

[Carlos Lorenzo Estrada]

You paint a dark picture there Vol. Yet prescient in every way. Peoples faces are so buried into their phones and tablets now a days. I'm reminded of a few days back walking down the aisle at work where the majority of people were on their phones watching YouTube or tiktok. Does technology allow us greater access to artists of the past, or more complacent as to put mundane above art. Quite honestly I would be shocked if the great masters you mentioned are even taught now adays in high-schools.

[Vol]

I taught them... when they are not, it is because with the U.S. Department of education put so much on the backs of state and local schools, there has been no room left for the guts of what people need to know...

[Thomas W Case]

Wow. You nailed this. Excellent work.

[Vol]

Thomas,
Thank you, man.
Vol

[redzone]

The Second Comin is a great poem. Yeats knew a thing or two about rising beasts. And in today's world, we have slouched pretty damn far down a fascist road. It's not too late to turn back, but the further down that road we go, the more carnage we will see.

Yes, the Dead Poets, Writers, Music Makers are no longer here, but it is up to us to become the new voices of rationality and reason. We need to write like our lives depend on it!!! I think your poem is in this vein, Vol. Thanks for sharing it.
-Curt

[Vol]

Thanks, Curt,
I'm reminded of the old Irish curse..."May you live in interesting times." Unfortunately, the swing away from the liberal arts, as opposed to liberalism, has been going on so long I doubt it will ever come back. A professor friend of min was telling me twenty years ago, "You know, Vol" we are the last literary generation. I see no evidence to the contrary...
Vol

[John Fitzgerald]

This is really great, Vol. Our dead heroes live on through their words and deeds. I enjoyed the image that they have fled in self-defense! Too beautiful for this world!

[Vol]

Thanks for saying... What's lost is our deeper souls, the onlything people know about Picasso is what his paingings might sell for at Sothby's."
Vol