John Biscello

Do you know where your children are?

Or rather who, in their ripening pedigree

and new language they are in the process of becoming?

Make no mistake

They are not

nor have they ever been

yours

belonging

infinitely to the green force driving wild shoots

 and spleendeep rhythms,

rogue digits

calculating Tomorrow’s petty pace,

they pay no heed

nor praise

to milkwhite coroners

or dead secret gods—

Feral beginners,

brazen and jangled,

they are learning, on a tilted axis,

how to master vertigo

and mend hemhorrages,

how to alter static forecasts

and give the future a fierce makeover.

They do this

claiming the Meek’s inheritance

to fund an Indiegogo Renaissance,

rearing ingrown urges

to become the next generation

of textonal Beats, Bards & Romantics.

Teething on sound, fury

and bright rage,

they don’t need your

Oxford, Britannica

or New Yorker

to define themselves,

to hell with your Webster’s

and Times crossword puzzles,

They have traded in oldschool standards

for a youtube revolution

and ad-free listening to

to hi-def Muses,

pipers to their own call,

they deliver fresh signatures

and encoded cravings

upon cybercentric

walls and posts

beautiful wrecks

of form following function

to blow print runs

and paper hats out

of standing water,

smileyface wink and nod to democracy

is at their fingertips

and screen tested daily.

Pop horror be damned,

they will not turn into braindead zombies

scavenging the earth for slugs and entrails,

their hands far too busy

turning screws and splinters

of discontent

into arias and choral chants.

So I ask again—Do you know where your children are?

Or who in the juggling of pits and seeds they are destined to become?

Make no mistake

with each and every

text, glyph, groove, totem,

riff, rant, image, ballad

and blow,

they are growing

nearer to themselves,

cellular babes toddling bluntly

against the grain,

scamps trespassing a course, uncharted,

their compasses set to Grace.