Post-Millennium Rhapsody

By J. Andrew Schrecker

A minor celebrity clips his toenails in the Oval Office, a gnat ties the bulb of a Christmas light to his back, and plainclothes policemen search for God at a carnival. With his second collection of poetry, J. Andrew Schrecker returns with a unique blend of observation, surrealism, and confession.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J. Andrew Schrecker
• Release date: Apr 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9798201679071

Book preview

Post-Millennium Rhapsody

& other poems

J. Andrew Schrecker

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Post-Millennium Rhapsody was composed in late February, 2018.

Other poems were written between 2005 and 2020.

This printing features revisions made since their initial publication as well as additional inclusions.

Cover photo & design by the author.

Copyright © 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 J. Andrew Schrecker

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Post-Millennium Rhapsody

I. America, pt. 2

after Allen Ginsberg

America, your landscapes have always been in flux but this time it feels like chaos.

Tension soaks highways and valleys, there’s pornography in your veins.

A minor celebrity clips his toenails in the Oval Office, uses Lincoln’s skeleton as a coat rack.

He’s grown mad with boredom and insecurity, his memory may be failing him,

but so is ours—didn’t we already do this in the ‘80s?

I was a Reagan baby, baptized in the fountain of a shopping mall.

The down-trodden and sentimental alike pelted me with pennies, some of them luckier than others.

Was this the trickle-down I’ve since heard so much about?

Births and cancer treatments are so expensive it’s a luxury to live, a privilege to die.

Resumes and diplomas patch broken windows, burn in oil drums.

The ashes rain down, pepper hair with grey.

Shadows cast by flames stowaway in pores, the weight winkling skin.

Everyone’s getting older but not any wiser.

Our books are quicker to celebrate the cotton gin than those whose hands were worn at its machinery.

Men in swallow-tail coats storm classrooms, chomp at cigars as they hog-tie teachers.

The children lined up before firing squads, an audience at home dialing 1-800 numbers to vote on last minute reprieves.

America, your Homeland babies are all grown now.

Rushed at birth to secret rooms—cameras planted behind retinas, radios beneath fingernails, in hallowed-out teeth.

Entire lives recorded and analyzed—all their embarrassments and lonely moments public domain, on display at museums and matinees.

Groomed to be unwitting soldiers in unwinnable culture wars.

Their battle cries limited to 140 characters, ideologies reduced to clever hashtags.

(Orwell rolling in his grave, Putin smirking from his palace.)

My generation was the last to not carry the world in our pockets even if we were the first to do so.

Elsewhere was once unknowable, a mystery waiting to be unfurled,

television a scheduled event—but 24 hour news channels changed that.

I remember watching as the LAPD beat Rodney King, its endless loop in my living room—a camcorder made this possible.

What happened before the record button is time immemorial. (Was this the first viral video?)

When the cops who did it were acquitted, a white truck driver