That’s when you know you’ve got it bad
The entertainments the exaltations
The lewd low desires the gratification of which
Once gave pleasure
Have lost their savor
And in their place
The trudge of tedium
The drudge of menial details

The amusements of youth and childhood pall
Their mechanisms exposed
Cartoons for sugary breakfasts
The movies TV shows and pop songs
For the media conglomerates’ unheard-of wealth
The medium a business model
The artist a factory’s efficient supervisor

They’re signing up passengers
For pleasure cruises in high earth orbit
This is what passes for culture and society
This is not the aesthete’s comely decadence

Poetry costs almost nothing
Pen and paper
Or typescript in the cloud

Has art ever flourished only for its own sake
That’s the value of it
But not the source nor the destination
Interests other than the permanent and true
And the Temple of Delight an archeological dig
Beauty buried beneath the detritus of the campaign
The forgotten soldiers of Thermopylae