america at a loss

i read an interview where ryszard said
look at art and you'll see what a society is up to
not exactly like that
(ryszard, you know, put his ideas in a much more elegant way)
but that was the concept, basically
(he was polish, a great journalist, a better thinker, look him up in wikipedia)

so i look at art in america
and i find julia allison
janet jackson half naked
televised singing contests
fifteen million dollar cascades
films that are content being just flicks
faster and more furious
and at the barrell's bottom
dirty and malnourished
i see poetry agonizing

(a century ago, someone said that "nothing but itself can harm american poetry")

empires don't last forever
we learnt with rome
these days, it seems
they are use and throw away

i look at art in america
and see america at a loss


julian bailey (Tucson, AZ, 1977)