Thom the Circus - One Poem

Modernism 101

Modernism is not new. All else is nostalgia/retro
To live in this age means to leave all others. Discontinuous narratives
since the first alpha bet. Collage/montage/compost/cutups? Old news!
What is new is you. Death of calligraphy=no copperplate/illegibility
Abacus to calculator=no math memory skills
Wristwatch to cellphone=no sense of the passing of time.
Typewriter to word processor=instant editing. Poor spelling/less proofreading.
Radio to TV=lack of listening skills. Book to texting=failed comprehension.
Who reads? Novels fail/become non-fiction factions. Nowhere is safe.
Multiple plots/narrators /simultaneous contradictions=screenplays!
Homeless in Gaza. You cannot go home again. Who remembers Chernobyl?
Forgetfulness fogs in a re-issue of formats. Beatles in 3D/HDTV
when they were mono black and white memories. History elides/slides
resold via"documentaries." Remake epics. FALL OF ROME for ratings.
TV eyes irrespective of content. NETFLIX kills BLOCKBUSTER.
DVD kills video. Who has a tape player? 8 track tapes?
The NEW is NOW and never lasts. Bright SHOCK OF THE NEW passe.
Picasso, Stravinsky, Dali, Miro to Warhol, Banksy, Christo, Hirst.
Journalism must morph into activism. Subject to subjectivism.
Special pleadings inform all Independent Film. Durer to Becket.
Hesse to Mann. Proust to bloggers. Milton to Mailer.
Rushdie's fatwa informs his work-knifing of Theo Van Gogh ditto.
All the Green, Velvet, Orange, Rainbow Revolutions compound.
Kafka and Orwell wrote the Pentagon Papers. Slapstick and surrealism.
Complex/compound our 21st Century. Simple as Corporate Accounting.
If it sells, it is art. If not, this must be a poem. See if he has a screenplay...



Thom the Circus is a prolific patron of poetry and a troubadour at large in Austin, TX. He hosts poetry readings at the Ba'hai Center and The Hideout, and is a large part of the central nervous system of live readings in Austin, TX.