The poem in the act of coping
With a glut of depletion
In the act of collecting residue
To assemble into a new
Something

For our newness is assemblage
And not the creation of objects from nothingness
So was it ever but now
Standing atop this repository of corruption
The hoarseness of a howl
The vagueness of a vision
The weightlessness of a sensation
And all mass surrenders to abstraction

Seen of but few
Concealed from the Goat King
Who smokes a cigarette in his Audi

The play has wound down
Done the denouement
Finished the epilogue
The usher sweeps the plastic cups
And we stack them in pyramids

The voice of a decadent age will be decadent
Though some custodians of the regular style
Will persist
Graduates of the programs
But despite their noble efforts
They will not serve as voice

Our memories are distorted
Our expectations small
Though we know a lot of things not taught in schools
Of urges and delights not spoken of
Of violence and disgust not spoken of
We know next to nothing
But there is so much in next-to

Pompous no doubt
Pretentious assuredly
But redolent of a certain askesis
Amid the parasites and the copulating monkeys

Democracy morality aesthetics
These are ideals
And those who speak of them idealists
And we live as you know not in an age of ideals
But of successes
And we who fail can see more clearly
Than whose whose sight is veiled
By little luxuries little appetites little tyrannies