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Poem

John Forbes

The Age Of Plastic

The Age Of Plastic

The Age Of Plastic

The dictionary definition of change
means your face looks different in the water
& even tho’ you’d feel at home down there
each moment spent at one remove, anywhere
between the mammal & the sponge,
you know you’d miss a particular cassette
idle tears or a glass of gin
& be irked by the serious options
a changeless life presents e.g. ‘Minor
poet, conspicuously dishonest’ would look funny
on a plaque screwed to a tree
while the blue trace of your former life
suggests an exception
generations will end up chanting: for them
the parts of speech will need explaining
                         not lakes or sleep or sex,
or the dumb poets of the past
who, being lyrical, missed out on this.
Close

The Age Of Plastic

The dictionary definition of change
means your face looks different in the water
& even tho’ you’d feel at home down there
each moment spent at one remove, anywhere
between the mammal & the sponge,
you know you’d miss a particular cassette
idle tears or a glass of gin
& be irked by the serious options
a changeless life presents e.g. ‘Minor
poet, conspicuously dishonest’ would look funny
on a plaque screwed to a tree
while the blue trace of your former life
suggests an exception
generations will end up chanting: for them
the parts of speech will need explaining
                         not lakes or sleep or sex,
or the dumb poets of the past
who, being lyrical, missed out on this.

The Age Of Plastic

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