Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Billy Joel

Sean Cole's "Poem for Billy Joel" (Court Green 6, page 91) is quite effective.

I did happen to start the fire actually ...
...all the nimrods in your music keep breaking up with each other.
...
"New Radiant Storm King" on whose albums all connubiality
remains in tact. You could learn a thing or two from them ...

I say this to disarm the dedomiciling bomb of your baleful lyric, Mr. Joel.
I beg you: tear down this Italian restaurant.

The effect admittedly depends on a generalization about Billy Joel's work (a sort of typecasting) and some specific knowledge of particular songs. So it's probably limited in that sense, and arguably inexorably "American". Still, it accomplishes a neat little extrication of real emotion from the grip popular culture.

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