position : relative

   
I hate Television: its frantic pace
and gaudy palette of low emotions;
its dumb addiction to the doctored face,
celebrities and their bonehead notions.

And yet, for lunch, on Wednesday afternoon,
with my bowl of chow and my Fruitfield spoon,
I sat my Web-entangled self before
the television, for an hour or more.

The network brass will never get inside
my little mind—they try so frequently!—
but I’ll gladly watch a film if time
permits and I haven’t seen it recently.

   Alas, three films are always on the box.
   I loved them once but now I think they’re pox.

Juliet, iridescent with romance:
she glows, she swoons, she sobs courageous tears!
Her lover’s strange, fluorescent neck and pants—
who chopped his locks to bits with garden shears?
   Our souls are stirred, we need them to elope,
   but Fate secures a noose around our hope.

Superb at noon, her green projectile puke,
and how she twists her rotten head around.
I always hope they’ll miss some gore by fluke,
those pesky censors on their scrupled mound.
   But their cutting cuts the crucified crotch,
   the Satanic barbs, so the whole is botched.

It’s no conundrum after all these years
of pouring over dull Endora’s clues.
We see our boy is under Stress. For here’s
the ancient dame he always has to screw,
the giant mom, the bro who acts the clown—
   I think we get what’s getting Gilbert down.

Such unremitting repetition only serves
to cool our blood and numb our nerves.
Executives, what makes your hearts grow fond?
Your ends and means don’t seem to correspond.