A Tape Of Assorted Songs Poem by Thomas Bates

A tape of assorted songs, very various
Bands
Thrown together
On one of the first
Cassette
Tapes
that came to hand.

They're phasing out these kind of wonderful things,
Like they did with LPs, promising something
A hundred or a thousand times better
than the albums I used to love.

But,
Like with so many promises,
I miss my records with the gatefold sleeves,
the time it took
thought
and the careful proportion, arguments between
the digital age
just like Neil's guitar once
got in the view of Pegi's
tv.
There's no end to it, so just compromise -
The stalemate condition made satisfying
only
by the stubbornness
of the
many.