Monday, July 04, 2011

a few metaphors got displaced, there were new placeholders

When poetry of sign became poetry of signal,
a few metaphors got displaced
there were new placeholders

why talk about how beautiful he or she was,
when you could talk about how beautiful his neurons are, her cells were

Camus exhaled existentialism looking at the streetcar
but existence and desire might have shifted to the traffic signal

In Santa Barbara, on a sea fog night, you will see the traffic lights develop halos,
if the color red was almost pink, you could then compare the red traffic light poles to cotton candies

the critique of capitalism is no longer, some say,
in decrying that poetry in the ad jingle for a car or the coffee,
it is perhaps in writing a new poetry of the speed-breaker or maybe the microscope

When poetry of sign became poetry of signal,
a few metaphors got displaced
there were new placeholders


For Isabelle Stengers, Jean Baudrillard