Poetry
So It's Me and Cellini, Forging that Gold & Iron Modern World
Kevin McGowin
And out of all these platitudes,
We find the one that suits us best; that is,
Easy is as easy was, that is, then:
This being your elixir mundi, your photo finish
Where your foot is proven to fall first. And yet,
Out of all this flatulence, we need one
Flagellum that'll do us right—here,
The top hat, the cane, the chrysanthemum!
The gold champagne (and that's shahm-pahn-TUH),
And I flail around like a dying sperm. Me and Cellini,
We knew when to quit; knew when the next glass
Would bring out speech to a slur,
Knew what slurs not to speak.
We're discreet, but better; meaning, we don't talk at all
Unless spoken to , and even then, we mean our silence.
Reduction! We reduce our stomachs to a lining,
We know when not to quote Plato we haven't read,
And that's right! Heigh ho! It's prescient, prescient as hell,
I say, and we're devising a way to make
what we've forgotten what you have, too,
That is, us; that is,
Then. And out of platitudes for which we finally seem
To compensate, sit down boy and I'll tell you of a world—
Sit down boy and I'll tell you of a world
Where all we need is one,
Is one stupid, whining kid
Who, falling off the monkey bars,
Never quite hits the ground.