may we all be heard
words are bells
let them ring!


Thom World Poet Austin, Texas, USA
Global Radical networker and activist for promoting the live Creative Arts,
at every possible opportunity, especially in his home-city, Austin, Texas, USA


Thursday, December 16, 2010

IN PRAISE OF GOSSIP

it is a shorthand for village empathy-
that folk care enough(displaced on to celebrities like Britney
whom we do not know nor care for
and laugh when they break the law
yet they are bound by more
restrictions than they would care for-
to be known is to be commented upon-
subtitled(entitled)common conversation
we talk about the OTHER one-
in the other room,or in a ward,or in a bed with someone other than
the one they make two with/headlines scream ADULTERY!
yet most marriages are recycling
skeletons swing in every closet/and when you come out
it is only the convention makes it special
Ritual habitual as glossy magazines
Fashion demands opinions/contrary to yours
gossip obeys strict laws-it is personal and yet public
intimate and yet not,common and yet specific
in fact it embodies every contradiction
fit for writers as a source of friction
between imaginary characters (based on real ones)
From Marcel Proust to Henry James to Charles Dickens
James Joyce to Samuel Johnson-gossip is vernacular tradition
and you should hear the one they are saying about YOU right now
beats wikileaks and wikipedia -anyhow,as i was saying
"she used to be SUCH a GOOD girl..until all that GOSSIP...

No comments:

Post a Comment