We are Waiting for another Singer of the Year
to make our hearts cry. Nothing much at all
has changed in a hundred years. Fascism
on the rise. Singers and poets still an afterthought,
a half a glance worth in the attention economy,
only fractions of cents per tear jerk
stream. Dust bowl plain, rumored weapon
of the left, makes it hard to breathe.
Hands of the wealthy play us stringed data
holes like poker chips, still have private parties
weaving in the Catskills, a thin, blinding blanket
of wool that gets pulled ‘cross the eyes
of this ever increasingly faster dying land.
Think we weren’t programmed a century ago?
The shift is just from natural to synthetic
drugs but dependance is still the same. Try
not eating a tomato when there is nothing else.
Think the depression was so great? I don’t know
a soul who isn’t sacked on the sofa some night
with a suckered grin on their face spooning
pintfuls of Netflix.
We wait for the singer of the year to make us
cry, check in on our phones— I mean friends—
remember how they actually could,
without even plugging in, a hundred
years ago. She does, in fact, later. Swaying
back and forth, perpendicular to the piano,
with the rhythm of the arm of a metronome,
and a reverb mic, echoing into the chambers
of the heart.
How can a hundred year old
voice still be moving in the shadow
of the Locomotive, the S-bahn worming
its way down the middle of the street, behind
her, in the dull brown amber glow of a spanking
brand new Amazon tower, as the busy delivery
bees of honey and dopamine buzz round
in the background of all of our
consciousnesses?