i think of actors in movies pandering
so happy to have snagged a commercial
of young people volunteering to fight
everyone whoring
and yet whoring isn't so bad, intrinsically, it's the wrong metaphor,
because sex for whatever reason, if mutually enjoyed, is just emblematic
of engaging the world, of being social, of living exuberant life.
but literal need, to be driven to do something you hate
so profoundly that you'd appall your soul to recognize it
so you cauterize your soul, what soul you had
and numbingly take the slap or ass-tear
and beam at the cash reward as the only good
it's the direness of the world I cringe at
the wholesale wreckage that calls itself an economy
owners and self-immolaters finding it good enough.
i think of Lou Reed condemning George H for depicting
the Velvet Underground as a bunch of ghouls in FG
and Reed calling George a "whore"
and I wonder when that metaphor turned negative for Reed
or was he indeed the phoney and grey dead poser
that George implied