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The cage,
let's call it Earth
The combat,
obvious
Elimination,
that's the death and the dying
The total
means all of us
Each and every
last child
in this cage
Each tree and mother
each last maimed soldier
erased from the ring
Every last one—except
the rocks, sea and desert—
appears to have chosen
something.
Poets from a past and darkly happy
Beatnik nation swarming
Up along the gangway
To some Buddhist cruise ship.
Neither rats nor lemmings—
Times have changed
For these impotent ranting diabetics
Bearded, lumpish lacking LTD Insurance
—Who would have known
These best minds of a generation,
Finally spared from junk and suicide
Would be dialing Roosevelt's spawn at SSA
And chasing after "immortality"? If you ask them
Why now they survey such remote abstraction,
"It comes with the territory,
Name of the game."
Ed Coletti has been writing for forty-five years and, obviously, he is a good deal older than that. He's got numerous books out there as well as publication in the usual national journals, sites and anthologies. Ed runs the Poetry Azul series in Santa Rosa, California and is publisher at Round Barn Press. Look up his two popular blogs "Ed Coletti's P3" and "No Money In Poetry."