UNION................  [Stefanie Bennett]

 

 

Who cares anymore, Hemmingway, you

Grizzly old bugger – if

You pay homage to the seas or snow?

 

Who cares, Dylan Thomas!

Who cares, Robert Frost!

Who cares, Neruda!

You’re all of you – missing – and

Too quiet for comfort.

 

Who writes the odes –.

Novels the centuries –.

What’s kidnapped

                       Henry Miller...

What’s white-washed

                       Paul Celan...

The bookshops are short

On Proust: Tolstoy’s

Out of stock –.

 

Who cares anymore about what’s

Written? Who bothers

To bother at all?

If it comes down to it – the art

Of itself is scratching

At death’s door; closed circuit

TV has told us that.

 

Who cares anymore, Hemmingway,

You father of the heavy-weights!

There are flags of convenience

In the great hall of words – so

Who now assigns

And designs the fates?

Who cares about

                          The caring...