Fall of the Abomunist Party: Poem

Inspired by Bob Kaufman, author of “Abomunist Manifesto” (1958)
(with Ginsberg and Plath sneaking in)

San Francisco is no longer San Francisco
   not City but skyscraper suburb of Silicon Valley
   fossil entombed in amber Wall Street gold Beijing flytrap
   hedgerows of hedgefund hedgehogs
   Larry Jerry Steve and Zuck printing money
   notice posted by Abomunist Party on all bank doors
   the Beat is gone

Abomunist Party Central Committee
   traded their soul to the Man for stock options
   traded rapture for tenure
   traded boho for pomo
   traded holy chaos for mediocre jobsecure blah
   traded free love free speech free Mumia
   freedom to freedom of the

Abomunist Party Central Committee
   sold their soul to the company store for
   free tickets to the secret policemen’s ball
   trussed up for intellectual property violation
   send all hosannas kowtows asskisses to
   United States President Goldman Sachs & Company and
   Vice President Koch Industries Incorporated

Abomunist Party Central Committee
   betrayed the surrealist revolution
   coldly executed the ancient sexy poetry muse
   handed down sentence of death to the author
   handed down the rules the Party line decreed forthwith
   waterboard the author torture the text to death
   there is no text your tongue been plucked out

Abomunist Party Central Committee
   removed the dancer from the dance to the gulag
   no dancing allowed in their revolution
   no revolution allowed in their Party
   no party but the Party line decreed on high
   no parking on the dance floor baby
   the Party bombed

Abomunist Party Central Committee
   was a very dodgy year
   was a tonedeaf ear
   there is no more ear here
   you are ear be ear now
   tonedeaf tonguetied politburo can’t dance their empty suits
   trip over their two left feet

Fall Abomunist Party fall
   out of the ivory towers beheaded by lightning
   out of the partyline soundtrucks
   out of fashion
   tickytacky plastic colossus fall to splinters all fall down
   slam on the street we dance on their remains
   stop

(Note: not written for NaPoWriMo, but while procrastinating Script Frenzy.) [Second Edit: Stanza 4 line 2 now reads “betrayed the surrealist revolution” (the original manuscript read “put paid to the revolution”); I removed the “the” before “sentence” from line 4 because the new way sounds better. Third Edit 5/11/12: Stanza 6 line 4 changed from "hear here".]

Copyright © 2012 Dennis Jernberg. Some rights reserved.