george washington he big he trade my mother for a pig

*
I don't hate music,

but it infuriates me that societies of all sorts

underfund poetry so drastically, especially when

compared to the financial support they lavish on music—

and it seems to me there is a reason this disproportionate

ratio occurs:

of course the power elites of those societies control all budgetary
decisions regarding arts funding,

and when they starve poetry while stuffing music with that munificent
paltry pittance of the national pork they grudgingly allot the various arts,

they know what they're doing. The biggies/oligarchs of every
country know

that music can always be manipulated to prop up their evil
purposes,

that symphonic snobsters and egomane popstars can always
be used to quell the mob and lull the populace via beautifully staged

reenactments of the status quo:—

they know music's part of their team. They count on music to
help enforce their tyranny. That's why

our last President, George W. Bush's feelings were so hurt by Kanye West's
harsh words:

he was being betrayed by a member of his staff.

If Prez GWB had learned of the dischordant notes being produced
during his reign by Joshua Clover (not to mention you),

would he have been similarly distressed?

Poetry doesn't get any funding (in comparison to music, poetry's
purse is empty)

for the simple logic that poetry opposes the oppressive policies of the rulers

who dole out

that gelt, that graft.

***

and it burns burns burns that ring o' fire

*
all you intells who wanna characterize billionaire Bob Dylan and his fellow wealthy plutocrat tunesmiths

as poets,

go ahead, I don't care, I have no interest in establishing hierarchies boundaries of who's
a poet and who's a what,—

but if the billionaire Zimmerman is a poet,

then where's James Tate's Grammy—

where's the Rolling Stone cover stories on Gluck/Olds/et al—

where's John Ashbery's Kennedy Center Presidential Honors Medal?

?

With music and poetry, it's a one way street.

And guess who's always getting run over on it.

**