The Anthropologist's Revelation

The keen anthropologist revealed
The other day, the twenty-first century's

All-governing principle to me.

The grand theory of everything.

He said, "It is the advertisement,
Once the legitimate dreg of papyrus or cheap paper,

The jovial cry of the youthful town-crier,

Now the container of truth and utility.

Smart and suave, it tells fruitfully

The grand story of everything,

All our heroisms and heartiness."

The silent corollary hangs unvoiced in the air :
The anonymous withering slowly, becoming flesh-less,
Less than penniless vacuum.

There's a logic in everything,

Sad or not.

The flow of a sad logic takes the smile

Out of a smiling child.

Like the logic of death and the logic of dying.

Let me go find that anonymous piece of rock, the anonymous story.

But where are they ?

I will pretend to grieve for that dying breed.

Real grief is a lot of work.

And there's enough glamor and glitz
- Forget the booze, tragedies and sad music -
To lose oneself in, anyway.