Don’t ask us to attend cos we’re not all there
Oh don’t pretend cos I don’t care
I don’t believe illusions cos too much is real
So stop your cheap comment
Cos we know what we feel

— The Sex Pistols, “Pretty Vacant”

I

Carter and Callaghan and studio sets
decked out in cheap formica, while the streets
reeked of garbage, as the long-odds bets
of older siblings came to nothing much,
their struggles syndicated as repeats.
Out of time and seeming out of touch,
the TV suits droned through the dinner hour.
Malaise. Hysteria. Declining power.

Yeah, blah blah blah. Who was really listening?
Shut your mouth. Shut up and hear me out.
Listen to my voice; I know its sound,
although I can’t quite say what it’s about.
Rain starts to fall. The putrid streets are glistening
as water takes the trash far underground.
It’s briefly pretty—is that what I mean?
Purified somehow, but not pristine.

No matter what you smoke or—hell—inject,
the moment never gets here, just comes close,
looks in the door, sheepish, circumspect,
a bit embarrassed. Then it dissipates,
over in an instant at the most.
You try to find it in the dirty plates
and smoke-yellowed posters in your two-room flat,
but you’ve got memory—a wisp at that.

Put on your boots, break in the face you wear
until it’s comfortable. Look for your lighter.
Affectations turn into addiction.
The skinny dreamer turns into a fighter
with curses on his lips and spiky hair.
Call it postmodern; call it contradiction—
neither’s original, but both are true
images of what they did to you.

II

It’s not about the latest news;
it’s not about your neighbor.
It’s not the shirt you wear to work
or capital versus labor.

This is not your bedroom wall.
This is not your band,
the “vanguard of the working class,”
or program in command.

This is not your mom and dad.
This is not your school.
This is not the Iron Heel.
This is not a tool.

It’s not about causality—
it’s not the egg or chicken.
It’s not the fuck who took your job
or who you put your dick in.

This is not a trophy case
of smashed-up, shattered glass.
This is not your one true love.
It’s not a hallway pass.

This is not the evening news,
not music by Cheap Trick
for screaming girls at Budokan.
It’s not your turgid prick.

It’s not the song you meant to sing.
It’s not the latest single,
Christmas carol, sermon hymn,
or advertising jingle.

This is not some freak-out show
hopped up on sex and pills
where everyone loves rock ‘n’ roll
and everyone gets killed.

This is just a desperate lunge,
a hill you need to climb,
a power chord that needs its fifth,
a phrase you need to rhyme.

It’s not a bid to change the world.
It’s not all that surprising.
It’s not a phase of some great plan.
I’m only improvising.

III

Somewhere between the gesture and the grasp,
somewhere between the titty and the asp,
somewhere between the cigarette and cancer,
somewhere between the pikeman and the lancer

one hears the gunshot, doesn’t see the face,
and sees the mother drop, the very space
transformed in her fall, the ground around her hexed.
The hunters are reloading, and he’s next.

Quincy R. Lehr’s new collection, Shadows and Gifts, his first since 2012’s Obscure Classics of English Progressive Rock, sees Lehr adopt a more visceral tone as he faces off against the economy, religion, the chattering classes, and, indeed, the United States of America. David Yezzi says, “From children’s rhymes to Eliotic rag to Juvenalian satire to punk lyric to the sighs of a suicide, Lehr scores the scenes of modern life. His songs are scathing, but with a tacit sweetness, and eminently danceable. So, don’t be a wallflower. It’s late. The music’s thrumming in the other room and things are starting to get a little crazy back there!” Michael O’Loughlin says, “‘Mene mene tekel upharsin.’ Like a latter-day Daniel, Quincy Lehr has arrived at Belshazzar’s Feast to interpret the writing on the wall, and extrapolate it in tightly wrought verses. In vehemently crafted forms reminiscent of Clough, Laforgue, or early Eliot, this angry if no longer quite so young man casts a cold eye on the carnivals of fools and knaves that is American life. The academic world of post-radical careerists comes in for serious deconstruction, nor are his fellow scribes spared the lash: ‘though you wouldn’t know it / that jerk-off in a business suit calls himself a poet.’ Old Possum defined poetry as rhythmical grumbling, and Quincy Lehr has produced another electric, bass-heavy kvetch, full of finely honed couplets and crushing riffs. America: read, laugh, weep, applaud.” And then there’s Jehanne Dubrow, who declares, “Quincy Lehr—enfant terrible and trained historian—applies his characteristic knife-edge humor to critiquing a crass, capitalistic landscape populated by pink Energizer bunnies, Bluetooth-wearing yuppies, and aging hipsters. But beyond the satirical voice, what drives Shadows and Gifts is Lehr’s eye for the details that matter and his musical, metrical talents.”

You may order the collection from the publisher here.