Friday 21 April 2017

21/30: #Targets

A poem about Class in Seattle,
Class in myself, the idea of Taste as
Class signifier, of Class as Taste
signifier, of Education as Class
and Taste signifier, as how despite my
love for both the band and radio station,
I couldn't help but define the
New Pornographers as
KEXP the band.

this is not a compliment.

A poem about Subarus.
A poem about people who
pay so much money for durable
flip flops  and then eat such expensive food
in those durable flip flops and
a poem about people, these
same ones, who think that
we relate to eachother because
we've both read Bolano.

A poem about self-isolation
and a poem about self immolation
in the need to fit in. The gatekeepers
still exist, despite the thinkpieces
gatekeepers share on their facebook
about how the internet
has rid us
of gatekeepers.

This is not a complaint.

A poem about what sorts of
buildings the suburbs meant
growing up, and what they mean
now, and a poem about

the assholes who live in my building
who let their friends steal flat
screened TVs and a poem about
the whole of recorded history
as seen through subsidized housing.

I am also an asshole in my building
but none of my friends have done the sort of damage
that leads to long term policy or rental changes.

A poem about "mindfulness."
A poem about "following your dreams" or about "hard work" or about Nice Things and why we can have them, actually, if we change our attitudes.
A poem about your favorite yoga place.
A poem about my favorite sandwich shop.
A poem about the way the moderately wealthy
do more to shame to poor than the extremely wealthy do
90% of the time, their smirks and their aphorisms.

A poem about the friends I used to have,
who hover like vultures in comment sections and
wider gatherings, whose lives of relative wit
and misanthropy sour like milk and burn like
spilt coffee.

This is not a high ground, but it's the only ground I've got.

3 comments:

Shane Guthrie said...

This one is very barbed. I feel the truth of its criticism of me, but I also feel the truth of its criticism of most of us. Thank you.

graham said...

The irony is that I was initially just trying to write a poem listing things I'd write about later. Hence the title. It turned into something else, and I tried to include myself in the criticisms. Future drafts will be pared down and sharpened.

Unknown said...

I like this poem. I feel like it could be a part of a good collection around "my building."