{"id":658,"date":"2007-09-25T22:20:46","date_gmt":"2007-09-26T03:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2007\/09\/25\/thudthoughts-on-a-found-poem\/"},"modified":"2007-09-25T23:44:59","modified_gmt":"2007-09-26T04:44:59","slug":"thudthoughts-on-a-found-poem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/2007\/09\/25\/thudthoughts-on-a-found-poem\/","title":{"rendered":"thud—thoughts on a found poem"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

Cornwall
\nOntario Canada
\nA city with a world of possibilities
\nUn monde de possibilit\u00e9s<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

<The city’s newly minted motto<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

The full open bellows of the earth have sung,
\nand now all poets may repose in sleep;
\nfor experts have the bullshit slung
\nand piled it high and piled it deep.<\/p>\n

Somebody makes a lot of dough
\nwhen words like these are piled for a city;
\nit makes us citizens want to go
\nto the crapper when mottos sound so silly.<\/p>\n

Let’s not hire a poet to paint with birds
\nwhen we can get a bureaucrat to mince our words
\nand say things committees don’t find absurd\u2014
\nand poutine is gravy over doggy curds.<\/p>\n

So: ignore our location \u2014near everything else\u2014
\nand ignore the St. Lawrence to boot;
\nignore Montreal, Ottawa, the U.S.
\nand the highways that link to those routes,<\/p>\n

it’s the world of possibilities they say in French and English:
\npossibility means growth and more box stores
\nthat makes the bureaucratic heart feel cuddly and tinglish:
\nand us more homogenous, with the same pox sores;<\/p>\n

Possibility means sell out to every global concept:
\ngive our lives to the very lowest bidder;
\nbecome part of Walmart and join the golden concert\u2014
\nor don’t: for just this once, please reconsider:<\/p>\n

if “A city with a world of possibilities”
\nsounds generic and unspeakably prosaic
\nplease reconsider all the ways we’re not a silly city
\nand get a better slogan for city’s sake!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cornwall Ontario Canada A city with a world of possibilities Un monde de possibilit\u00e9s <The city’s newly minted motto The full open bellows of the earth have sung, and now all poets may repose in sleep; for experts have the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,7,3,46,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-found-poem","category-mild-mannered-opinion","category-poetry","category-river","category-screeds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/riverwriter.ca\/wordcurrents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}