The day will come when everyone will
                                         be famous for fifteen minutes
                                          —Andy Warhol

Silent are the stars that shine like burning ends of
cigarettes above the noisy city,
while tired poets with baggy eyes
hover like speechless angels above the Void,
their voice boxes cut off by the loud billboards,
display windows and TV ads,
selling risk-free miracles to the maddened mob,
searching for happiness in a perfect product,
and some slick musicians spit out sleazy songs
with their slippery tongues that scorch the crotches
of oversexed teenagers, exploring the shallow
breath of their libidinal urges,
while the frantic health professionals, counselors and
teachers preach new secular mores of safe sex and birth
control.

And what thoughts did I have of schools turned
condom factories or of a drunken beggar woman
who didn't have to watch her weight
to get that perfect figure that all men love to ogle?
Was I amused by a billboard that told me
"REAL MEN DON'T USE PORN" and did I rush to get
a fresh needle or a condom to avoid the AIDS virus?
And did I rush to be saved by some TV preacher
and did I call for "truth" a scientology
or a psychic hotline?

O how alone I felt amidst liberals in search
of causes and conservatives in search of scapegoats!
Could I have just shut my eyes, turned off my thoughts
and drowned myself in beer?
Could I have published obscure poems in some Midwestern
anthologies and taught pompous creative writing courses
to collegiate hip-yuppies?

No!  I have embarked on my lonely journey,
I have embraced this Hell like a curious child,
I have renounced expertise and formal training
that dull the senses,
I have tasted the bitter glory that comes with being
a nobody—just a local madman that roams about
town with a smile of an idiot or a poet—it really
makes no difference.

You can have your absurd song lyrics, your absurd records
and books, your absurd degrees and titles, your absurd
beliefs and religions,
You can have it all, if you really want it—
a marble monument to your phallus in some crazy
Hall of Fame
or a thousand glowing vibrators with triple X
videos of your neighbors,
hoard it all on some shelf full of golden trophies and
hard-bound volumes
next to the moon dust samples from the Apollo mission and
numerous pictures of Elvis,
next to the pinups of Marilyn and all the other
centerfolds...

     For Thine is the Kingdom,
     For Thine is the Glory...

                    ...if only for fifteen minutes.

                                                          January 9, 1992
                                                       --Alexander Shaumyan