New Beauty

1

Being viewed as the usual combination
of coward and hero is a debilitating thing;
naturally you would try to deceive them
in the music store, and then you want to sound like
you’re playing with a famous band, playing a song
that is to be a record of the navy’s faults.
You can depend on the City Council to do what is wrong —
the city may be Chantilly, and then again it may not.

So you pour all your resources into the battle
to get to the top of the pops with your angry music,
and force the listeners around the Pacific rim
to vote your way: most are no friends of America.
The airplane to you is that person, a star,
rising high and then falling. That’s the Catch 22.

2

Being viewed as the combination of beauty and ugliness
is a debilitating affliction: with a false face
and a different coat you would try to deceive them
and the more interested they are your role
in the music store, the more they want to sound like
something that’s already popular and thus out of date.
Fashion has to change: that’s its essence. One day
enduring values reign, then around the Pacific rim,

an SQL battle — structured query language
pestering the database for more and better data.
Then again, you may get sacked; then where’s your
cocky prognostication? Knee-deep in bullshit, a failure
recorded over the navy’s default sonar ping on dolls
and the airplane to you is that person, not America.