Old Devil
Most artists encourage themselves as ones
athwart the powers placed at chance, enthroned
to punch up as they claim to be most grown
in judgement while declaring what is fun
and morally correct, and smile to shun
those whose wrong thoughts have earned them the first stones
propelled at them, but right thoughts are just cloned
from the same powers from whom they take funds.
Though three decades have passed since he has died,
the more that one fat Englishman becomes
again as relevant and poignant when
a modern controversy roils those in
good grace, for he enjoyed a cultural scrum
against the literary mandarins’ pens
and stressed his loves—pop culture and mixed gins.
Sundown at Kenyon College
Bent down, he searches for names lost
among the scattered, weathered stones,
the tablets probing distant thoughts
when crouched above some poet’s bones.
Then there’s some noise at the site’s edge,
and eyes upwards, he notices
three huddled students laugh and tread
the graveyard with betraying bliss.
He thinks some sacrilege should be
declared for this cool nonchalance,
but then reflects, “If Crowe could see,
he’d say, ‘They know the meter’s dance.’”
And heading to the parking lot,
though not as glum, something’s not right
he reckons as he views the plot,
but no more time, there’s little light.
Christopher Fried lives in Richmond, VA and works as an ocean shipping logistics analyst. A poetry collection All Aboard the Timesphere was published in 2013. His novel Whole Lot of Hullabaloo: A Twenty-First Century Campus Phantasmagoria was published in 2020. Recently, he was an advisor on the 1980s science fiction film documentary In Search of Tomorrow (2022).
Sparks of Calliope 