Pampers Poetry Bomb

I was listening to "All Things Reconsidered" on National Pampers Radio on my way home tonight.  They did a story about Elizabeth Alexander, personal friend of Pampers, and the poet he has chosen to write a tome for his coronation.  I should preface by saying that I have never read any of her work, but was suitably unimpressed by the selection she recited for the segment.  She spoke about what she feels is involved in rising to the task of writing for such an event:

"...I am the vessel for the poem.  It's not about the poet at that moment, it's about the poem. So the pressure — the challenge — is to write a poem that can serve … all of those expectant, gathered millions and to let the poem be what calms my nerves when I am up there. To let myself remember that I am there to deliver these words and these words have been commissioned to deliver a very, very amazing moment."

Yes, I too threw up a little in my mouth.

When the story was over I turned off the radio and thought what I would write for the occasion.  It's been a long time since I've written a poem.  Song lyrics, yes.  But a poem?  It had been years.  I gravitated to the cliche of being the vessel and began formulating verses in my head on the theme.  I give to you now my ode to the coronation of Pampers:

Big Bucket of Vomit

I have a great big empty bucket that I shall deliberately fill

with:

Fifty state rapes and deflated dreams, 

a siphon of money into benefactors’ pockets…

Voices screaming, sheeple bleating, and cheaters cheating...

Bros beating hos and goodness knows

there’s plenty of room for their bleeding, copping, and feeling…

Ironed shirts, once respected writers, kids in blue tees

singing songs in phony New Age choirs 

for their grownups’ sense of contentment…

Brushed off shoulders and unholy rollers,

speaking in tongues to decide whose cause is civil right, 

and who is uncivilly wrong…

Statuary blue bears peering in at zombies staring through a plate glass fog,

inhaling just words while the pertinent laws are burned…

Snakes’ blood and parlor games,

for those who are willing to pay, 

and sell…

Dope and rage for those who now know 

there will be no change, 

just more of the more they stay the same…

A generation of burned bras passing torches that never went out,

smoldering quietly for a sum of years until 

NOW let them down…

Broad stripes and 48 bright stars, 

and the last gleam of twilight.

All into my bucket these will go,

and i will be the vessel for it all,

so when I see you pass you new boss same as the old boss

in your new clothes,

i can puke my salute to the latest false-god of Fraud.

And when at last i am emptied of every broken promise 

i will round up my young ones and teach them well.

For as surely as your mouth is the sluice for a flow of unending lies,

this will happen again if they do not learn 

to live with open eyes.

So, who are your favorite poets?  Mine are Dylan Thomas, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and e.e. cummings.  And then of course there is Ewan McTeagle...