They’ve made a stage production
of a movie that was insanely popular
when you were growing up;
the trends of your youth now
have a retro curiosity to them,
like some sort of museum oddity.
Your music is now called classic rock &
your favourite albums are referred to as seminal &
when a young band covers one of your old songs &
you sing along your kids look at you strangely &
wonder how someone as uncool as you
could know something that they think is theirs.
Records have moved through CD to mp3
but a vinyl collection is to be held in awe
& video became DVD, & now blue, Ray,
but the movies are just remakes.
Nintendos are now called Wiis,
Mario has risen bigger than Jesus,
& Apple is the product of choice
for the middle-class edgy set
pretending to be artsy.
Now your rock stars are suffering from
old people ailments or reforming
for reunion retirement fund tours.
Bowie & Cohen, Prince & George Michael
all rang out their final chords.
Your favourite hangouts
have now been taken over by
cliché hipster cafés
selling pretentious single origin drinks
but you can’t smoke or joke about
how contrived their record collection is.
One day they might
make a stage production of your life –
a black comedy
directed by John Hughes.
First published in The Frequency of God, Close-Up Books, December 2017
