The Neo-emo-Goths

Where did they come from…

this army

of adolescent

androgyns

 

Where did they come from…

with the zippered hoodies

that look like the skin

of neon zebra.

 

Where did they come from…

Probably

they identify

themselves with a name I’m not cool enough to know, let alone speak.

I think of them as neo-emo-goths.

 

Where did they come from…

Wherever it was

there must have been no sun.

They are so pale.

And they maybe played the paino.

With those long boney white fingers.

 

Where did they come from…

With these elven-waif features

and collar length hair

too apathetic for naturally-occuring color or texture

 

Where did they come from…

It must have been a place

where men only

were allowed product

for fingernails and eyes, lips and cheeks.

It must have been a place

with a surplus

of Nightmare Before Christmas

paraphenelia.

 

Where did they come from…

was it an underground dwelling

with roots poking through the low roof

where they were lined up

bony hip jabbing bony hip

where they were in a catatonia

unblinking

unmoving

until some

unspoken signal

triggered the Great Emergence

of the Gothic Groundhog Patrol?

 

Where did they come from…

Countless suburban closets

where they hung

upside down on pull-up bars

in silence

for years

patiently waiting

for the whole rap chic thing

to run its course?

 

Where did they come from…

perhaps they arrived from

some faerie world

on magical ships

with long sails unfurled…

Were those shopping malls deemed

as good a beachhead as any?

 

Wherever they came from

There is this cross-generational connection

It only last a moment.

 

(S)he is buying a stack

of C.D.s that evoke my childhood:

Oingo Boing

Morrisey The Cure

Madness, Pixies– of course the Pixies

and Sinead

 

The purchased is bagged

(s)he turns to face me and ruins the moment

with a Billy Idol whiplash smile

I realize this great confusion:

Is this schmaltz or for real

Is this camp or a home in the 80’s…

When you live

in a world fortified with irony

The sarcasm soon becomes

the very air that you breathe.

 

(This poem was my submission to Randy Elrod’s Wednesday Watercooler.  Click  here. to read the great posts at this gathering of great posts.)