An Antique Modern Cool
for T.S. Eliot

Middling to mother-rocking
Mediterranean breeze.
Minstrelsy in the echoes
of the heart's bell tower.
Refractory angst gullible
Elviswise, of Cinderella:
watch it man gratuitously
the unmannable meringue.
Metanondescriminasturbation
is the buzz word of the day
if you're really smart
and, like me, into culture.
Intellectuals engage semi-intellectuals
in no end of hesitation waltzes.
Destabilization filters the lowly
proximate ends of finality
across coexistent tonality
into the sphere of my mind's palm.

Day in, day out,
Maxim Hugh Gorky Jr., Crystal Clerics Inc.,
the familial context mistaken at face value,
certain powerful embellishments of hair style,
hair today and hair tomorrow, and hair beyond,
Hot Water Supplier General,
Hot Water Supplier Particular,
Street, Park Area and Sidewalk Water Supplier,
Boris Yeltsin Godunov Boyscout Bisque Special,
Burger King's Cheese Double Decker Whopper Deal
Du Jour, toujours with extra large fries to go,
a raincoat and an umbrella, wicker, handburger,
eyeburger, lipburger, brainburger, mindburger,
Ye Caravans of High Hope and Other Stories,
your punch-drunk buddy waxing vicepresidential,
Social Stigma and Sons, classes by themselves,
current croutons and earlier croutons,
borscht, bullshit and casserole of your choice,
the madame who welshed and her male accomplices,
faint vacillating administrations
in a web of stark financial disaster,
whispering property rights
in the teeth of a shrinking securities market,
an ever-expanding set of opportunities,
a never-ending stream of opportunities,
Hick Yam Cutler Waits, his impact on drama,
his impact upon the imaginative self,
his impact upon himself and his tough
almost complete aura of guru and god,
mayo, papa, this newsletter and the binoculars,
rain, tinfoil, malt, amber and patterned dreams,
their communistic implications,
Jaques Derrierrida, critical legal studies,
the serpents of oblivion, their crawling ways,
their tarnished, varnished, crushed, soft
distinguishing marks, unpardonable locutions,
the silence of locusts in a valley,
cellos with arms like statues', a twang of sitar,
flowers reminiscent of demons and little else,
flowers reminiscent of demons in little vases,
a fragrance reminiscent of nothing in particular,
as also your goblet's intrinsic sparkle,
myself, eighteen elephantine trunks,
and, needless to say, the swift
familiar deer of Alaska,
all approached without prejudice
and with an OK frame of reference,
are decidedly damnngam cool!
Each a stroke of nothing but genius.

Emparloured ladies pay their debt
to the late T. S. Eliot.

Frolicky like kroliki,
they warble thus: You listen to us -
for most everybody digs this;
for he who wagers all, conquers everything;
for every cool rover should know
that we'll stand behind him, I guess,
and/or know that we'll help clean up his mess;
for we are the ladies at Bonus Plus;
just call us. They drive me nuts. Anyways.
Stay cool, Tom S.E., write soon! They sing:
Subcult is a great sub
sonuvabitch, - to which I most gladly subscribe -
Yrs eminently postmodern
and deadly, Philip Nikolayev



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