Mixed Metaphors Poem by gershon hepner

Fast and funny, smart and very nimble
is his mind, the poet thinks,
making what is complicated simple,
mixing metaphors like drinks,
until, becoming quite inebriated,
his speech begins to slur,
and, manic as a tom-cat that has mated,
his poems fail to purr,
and thoughts like literate lemming herds stampede
as fearlessly they dash
till, unrestrained by Microsoft, with speed
on pixeled screens they crash,
as slow as death and very sadly humbled,
like cats that have been fixed,
while, static as statistics, he has stumbled
in metaphors he's mixed.


Barbara Ehrenreich reviews 'Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything, ' by James Gleick ('Pantheon' in 'Think Quick' (NYT Book Review, September 12,1999) . She says the book is 'nimble, smart, often funny, and -best of all - fast.' She explains that Glueck says that 'we glom onto Diana or O. J. or John Jr. like a lemming herd in full stampede. Against all expectations, the collective brain that emerges from our ever-richer connectedness is turning out to be kind of dumb'.


9/15/99