YouLoveMe

I'm sorry I used you to exhibit, The need for radical diversity, The need to embrace, not prohibit, What mods push away as perversity. I feel a toff's need to atone to you, I'm happy for our collaborations, But this time I'm speaking alone to you, Your model, not mine, underpins nations. I've filibustered you with filigree, I've resisted your Calvinist story, I'm not saying now that I will agree, But I b'lieve your logic's sound, though gory. I acknowledge you as the creator, In what follows I'm your illustrator. Part II

The point is to build new communities, To counter inevitability, To give new projects opportunities, To open doors for possibility. You got that vibe from Duncan Kennedy, You read his crit memos by candlelight, His line inspired a gay serenity, And a lit class dinner one Cambridge night. 'Twas more than forty years ago today, That Duncan taught his merry band to play, Can you turn his song into a model, Pinned down like a ship inside a bottle? Maybe it's better turned into a dream, Of a future free left where poli scheme.    Part II

Today our guest is Thomas Piketty, Krugman's review of your book was quite mean, "You don't have a hook, you're no Tom Petty, How can you inspire the radical teen?" Paul likes logic microfoundational, It worked for him, I'm glad for his Nobel, Such logic can be inspirational, I am not sure it's part of me--oh, well. They'd like me to build a micro model, To 'splain how capital gets ever more, To put a fine proof inside a bottle, To have it wash up on every shore. Yes, I will try it, I'll carry your Ring, But I'm not sure that your quest's a good thing. Part II  

Suppose there's pop'lar mobilization, To police the work of cult'ral elites, Imagine Calvinist concertation, To reprove toffs' biases and deceits. French fry cooks would rate aristocrats' dreams, Line workers would throw off their old fetters, Cleaners and clerks would score poetic memes, Peeps would rule the republic of letters. What's sauce for the goose 'plies to the gander, If econ needs reg, why not culture, too? Doing that will raise elitists' dander, But fairness entails the turn of the screw. Welcome to the modern panopticon, There's always a mirr'or and a cop to con. Part II

My Dead West Ind'ian Male is Charles Mills, He turned the universal upside down, There is no God, only contests of wills, We're all condemned to live in Kingston town. Against fate let us raise a pass'ionate cry, Let us love it, too, like angry Nietzsche, Let us disdain the political sty, And life that's bureaucratic and preachy. We fly the flag of interpretation, What's interesting is not deducible, We declare freedom from ev'ry nation, We heat up philosophy's crucible. Will you join me and be a free spirit? The Wailers are playing--can you hear it? Part II

My DWEM?  No!  I pick Carol Gilligan, Let's go beyond the DWEM-ish rational, And algorithmic Valley Silicon,  Let's join in loving morals passional. Let's strive together for social justice, The personal must be political, Don't follow rulers who say just trust us, Of elitist claims, let's be critical. DWEMs, you're welcome in our coalition, Rousseau, I believe that you're on our side, Identity's fate, also volition. Let's display--and also make room to hide. In our version of critical theory, We love the winey, also the beery. Part II 

I don't give a fig about left and right, Your politics obsession is not mine, The search of all souls to live in the light, To love and live by truth--that's what is fine. You're wrong to think I feel only for us, 'Bout a rock's realization let us care, 'Bout the end of all let's rejoice not fuss, Destruction as well as creation's fair. My DWEM if I have to choose one is Freud, Salvation if it be, be close to home, Eros with Thanatos is e'er alloyed, Forget about revolution in Rome. From base impulsiveness, may we be free, Where crazy id once was, let ego be. Part II or III (same for the other cell poems)

May we yearn to embrace totality, To gather up the whole world in our arms, To reach beyond blinkered locality, To challenge our egos with reason's charms. It's fine if our line is anarchistic, It nonetheless remains political, It's more than self-improvement heuristic, It prizes logic analytical. My Dead White European Male is Marx, Flawed as he was, he remains our greatest, He taught us how to make blazes from sparks, We should not revere only what's latest. What's old can be revolutionary, Let's search for truth evolutionary. Part II or III

Harry sings "Banana Boat" on the deck, He and Sidney sway and hold flowers high, Bob tosses his dreads, strokes his guitar's neck, Looks down, starts singing, "No Woman, No Cry." "Bob, I know you disdain Sidney and me, I'll hap'ly yield our poets' stage to you, From Ez and Tom let us all be set free, Merrill and Ginsberg are our allies true." Harry, I don't care 'bout any of them, On our island I was born, there I'll die, Trenchtown is my town, it's not for the creme, Want to write my own poems, love Ras, get high. Harry, Sidney, join me in Jamaica, Let's go where we be mover and shaker.

Three poets at war in the captain's tow'er, 'Bout how to transform the commanding heights, Below singers sing, fishermen hold flow'rs, Laughing at the poets' love-driven fights. Boys, come down with me from the windy top, Yes, I know we'll have to go up again, But please let's agree on a perm'nent stop, To our unjust rule o'er women and men. Ginny, we detest your bluestocking zeal, We would rather be two sad elitists, Let you and your kind disdain how we feel, Let you triumph, let us be defeatists. About our rule let's not make too much fuss, They're lucky not to be crazy as us.

The mainstream has some impressive models,  Arrow's Theorem explains why two poles rule, Becker 'splains why democracy coddles, Why competition is a clement tool. We crits have our own insights to proffer, We plumb the contradictions of both sides, Plumb the mixed emotions both sides offer, The incongruence that in both abides. Left and right oft back the ethos of group, But sometimes do exactly the reverse, Structurally, both sides are messy goop, That messiness is glor'ious and perverse. In a crit vision of democracy, Logic and illogic are both a key.

Why are corporations so effective, It seems their incentives are defective, They organize us for collective work, The mainstream predicts we're likely to shirk. We crits have a plaus'ble explanation, We are Calvinists in part of our souls, Overworking for the corporation, We find in it our God and our true roles, But our faith is only a partial one, Part of our souls rejects the collective, We want to be ones who walk in the sun, We want salvation to be selective. Radicals should respect that both parts rule, To insist on one is to be a fool.

In poetry, we seek contradiction, In math, consistency is what we want, In the humanities, truth is fiction, In the sciences, fiction is a taunt. Can philosophy be in the middle, Incorporating the best of both sides, Or is the middle twaddle and twiddle, An English-French sandbar, submerged by tides. Game theory's one way to philosophize, Its mainstream flies flags o'er Dover's white cliffs, Its poets worry that love ossifies, They fish from Calais in little red skiffs. Hurrah for new proofs and consistent choice, Hurrah for new tales and the poet's voice.