about tragedy

we are raised and steeped
in TRAGEDY,
at least we few Yankees
by disposition or antiquated disease
inclined to take the literary seriously

our classrooms ring
with the poisoned king
and his son
that paragon of over-thinking.
We listen to the eloquent villain Macbeth
and we learn through valiant Brutus
and the dissipated Antony
how nothing comes to any good

we ride with Willie Lowman
on his desperate sales-trips;
we abandon our fragile unicorn-sister
for the lure of jazz and
the illusory light of ships

these lessons are all very good
for the frivolous privilleged
and the senatorial classes...
perhaps even for
the wasteful and mindless
among the masses

but what of we
sensitive ones
who must already walk in darkness...
or we who must make our mark
in the world of factories, art shows,
rigged stock exchanges and endangered trees?
what are we to gain
from these "high-culture" murals
of over-moral futility...
forever hanging on the problem
yet not daring the solution,
thus satisfying the tradition
but neglecting meaning and inspiration...
little to revive us
when cold misfortune hides the sun

Haven't the professors learned?
Greece is a bankrupt cesspool of corruption
as is mindless Berlusconi Rome.
Shall we emulate these great societies
(or Elizabethan "fountainhead" Parthenon copies,)
and drive the antiquated dagger home
into the heart of hopeful modernity?

I shall,
while sparing my own chest,
repeat the empty mockery sometimes
I'm sure...
for so was I educated liberally
such my examples of immortality

But for future lessons,
let's alter the formula
toward the animal human,
and open the window
not so much to simple optimism,
as to tales
of trying but victorious struggle
and valorous perserverance
in the face of poverty or adversity