business lice
Business Life
by donald illich
My haircut is a brand new business.
Outside the barbershop window
onlookers hope to catch
the black strands of Samson
retiring into business life.
No more collapsing columns
of poetry, attracting women
and lions who come with
scissors and fangs to eat me.
No more boss’ bad looks
or rotting sonnets in the slush
piles. My cubicle hates hippies.
We drink plastic from plastic cups.
In a lot of ways, we are still living thru hippie times, yet not without considerable ‘backlash’ which is the perspective of this poem. I thought the bit with Samson and “collapsing columns of poetry” was intriging…Samson a hippie, i never would have thought of that. The whole capitalist persona comes across very well…especially at the end: “We drink plastic from plastic cups.”
Nice pic going with poem! Topless hippie-chicks are the best, they make great recruiters and it’s hard to argue with them.
Mr Illich has a remarkable grasp on social strata…are you really anti-hippie?..or a hippie writing from the perspective of a yuppie?..or in the middle seeing one helluva slugfest? Either way, it’s refreshingly provocative.
On another note, do you think the 60’s revolutions took things too far? And are we paying for those gained freedoms with neglect of responsibility? Hmm. Did the 60’s overshoot or not go far enough? Something to think about.