The following poem, a contemporary take on the Californian Dream, was delivered at the 2019 bonenkai by Preston Keido Houser, who followed it up with a shakuhachi piece in lighter vein.
A villanelle is a fixed-form poem consisting of five tercets and a quatrain and follows a specific rhyme scheme using only two different sounds.
*****************
At land’s end there’s not much to hear
Lamentations of a blood-soaked legacy
Hymns of a haunted hemisphereThe severed scalp a poisonous souvenir
That punctuates a psychotic reverie
At land’s end there’s not much to hearWhere once the glee of corporate cheer
Now the anguished cries of a doomed destiny
Hymns of a haunted hemisphereWailing women silenced by war profiteer
Frantic families imprisoned by poverty
At land’s end there’s not much to hearWhere once a hectic hope of frontier
Now the hush of extinguished epiphany
Hymns of a haunted hemisphereFueled by a frenzy of consensual fear
And this-land-is-your-land hypocrisy
At land’s end there’s not much to hear
Hymns of a haunted hemisphere—Preston Keido Houser
2019
For more by Preston see here, and for another villanelle please click here.