"Marketing is the quintessential art-form of the 21st Century." (Germaine Greer)


The emperor's new tent


She ... says ... she's ... made ... Two
"seminal" works: one a tent,
the other a bed.

Perhaps I should just leave it at that?
(After all it is 5-7-5 syllables, and it really says everything that is needed, if you are paying attention... Are you paying attention? ... )

If I left it at that it would save me from getting in too much trouble.
Then again... (I lick my lips and wonder if I may say out loud what I'm thinking).

Well...
IT'S BOLLOCKS, isn't it.
Well isn't it?
I mean, isn't it?
No, seriously, isn't it?

The "seminal" she is talking about
spurt out of figurative bollocks.

Probably I don't need to worry.
Probably no one's listening anyway.

But just perhaps
This Poem could save our naked emperor of art
from showing his cock in public
(although I know you like seeing it)
(as well as his bollocks)

You see now how this
text could be: a seminal
work of poetry?

(Brackets ... Because it's also Bollocks!)

If a work of art can be invented just by saying it is one,
maybe it can be destroyed just by saying it isn't one?

We all just slipped and fell into a paradigm hole.
Like a rift in the fabric of space and time.
But then we realized.
We woke up.
We came up for breath and realized that actually
we had momentarily lost our ability to distinguish
our arses from holes in the ground.

The current cultural agreement says that:
it all depends on who is doing the saying.
You and I (the regular cnts in the street):
we don't get to say.
What ever I write in a poem,
there is nothing I can say that will dethrone Tracey
from her "seminal works" of art.

You and I (the regular cnts in the street)
we don't get a vote,
or if we did get a vote,
the people with the money and the power,
would use their money and power to subtly alter our minds by means of
"public relations" / propaganda / marketing / the next big thing,
to vote for
[whatever it is that
will have them continue to stay in control over
as much money and power as they can manage to].

The current answer to which seems to be the lovely Tracey.

I know she sat in her tent for six months and whatever.
I don't know, maybe it even is art.
I mean: live and let live.

But I have to earn a living too.
And (let's say – just let's say) I'm a poet.
(I know we can argue about that one too, but just for now let's say: I'm a poet.)
So how about:
Just by saying so,
This Poem is the antibiotic to the cultural meme virus known as "Tracey"
and the bloke with the formaldehyde whose name I can't remember.
(Tracey the meme, not lovely Tracey the person, who I'm sure Is lovely
... I'd love to share a flask of tea with her ... in her tent... )

I'm not saying I'm not jealous.

But when Bollocks itself
becomes the medium of your art,
you have got to work really hard
to distinguish the part of art
which isn't Bollocks.

In the same way that Edvard
liked to leave his paintings "unfinished"
I would like to do the same with my poem.



Poetry by Andrew Bindon
Read 798 times
Written on 2010-03-20 at 14:40

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