For Once, Then Nothing: The 90s Were A Remake Of A 70s Tv Show Nobody Remembers Watching Poem by Cretan Maineiac

George and Gordon (not
Lord Byron) went
dashing thru the snow from

a Hot[e]l in Baltimore, faithful
neither to
the plot nor historical

Record, Presidential
debates fueled &
fanned Nostalgia but failed to resurrect

JFK (Reagan came closest) , Liberties taken w/ the
Facts, sixty-minute-
man turned who-‘da’-man turned where

have all the cowboys gone? Paranoid
President who
Warned of terror-turned-

compassionate Prez- fidelitically challenged- who gifted but
never read
his Whitman, Free

Speech cast as primitive in
Mandarin sub-
titles, Reality to 'too much information' &

trim in the Oval Office, the orgy
raged on- for some- in the
TV lounge and every alphabet channel, as

Arafat stood on the
tarmac,
waiting,
.

In the 70s
-Helen Reddy thanked God @ the Grammys, '...'cause She makes all things possible;
in the 90s
-Dishwalla ('... 'cause I'd really like to meet Her...') was deemed “profound” by the (pre-recorded) Programmer.

In the 70s
-Uriah Heap sang of Easy Living; in the
90s
-chest-thumping hip-hop & grrrl blather extended That Me Decade into
“and I” decay.

In the 70s
-my 6th grade teacher parroted, “behind every good man is a great woman
(tho never explained her 1st husband) : ”
In the 90s
-my supervisor thanked me for stepping between herself and a disgruntled
consumer.

From streaking to no-
peeking, Reality, locked in the
Back & only transcripts allowed up

Front, nineteen Arabs
Parading thru the
Yard & there went the

Neighborhood, thru the un-
Locked house &
Tolerance redirected Prejudice into

the Lockbox, TMI fitting
everything but
the lavender-fingered dusk &

'w/ this (cinnamon) ring I thee wed, ' & the Messianic
Filter cast in
clay & dunked (but not drowned) in

urine, blurred,
Blottered
out, one Truth, for

all, for
once, then
Nothing.