No Longer Dressed in Black

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,
a spacesuit insulating them 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