No Longer Dressed in Black

(from my first poetry collection: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007SQ9JYC)

They no longer dress in black,

they’ve become accountants,

clerks, engineers and thieves.

Cobain is dead and so is Lennon

that mop-top leader of revolutions.

Now middle-American angst

replaces the illusion, replaces the

heroes pushed beyond death, the

black that waits for us all.

Only the Goths are left and they

never bought into it anyway, their

blackness worn only on their sleeves,

insulation from society.

They used to wear black, these clerks,

thieves, accountants; clinging to it,

as if to hope, but knowing there was no

challenge, no future, no reason to believe.

They were pulled inexorably

into society, depressed enough

to go along, depressed enough

to suck the blackness into their bodies

and smile as they hand you your change.

Kenny A. Chaffin – 6/26/01

Mansions of the Mind