Poem: Remakes


Remakes

In Hollywood, it seems like no idea
is no problem.  It would be nice
to have that same license:
nothing new comes to mind,
so you remake someone elses
book: write Ulysses, or Moby
Dick, at least the taxonomy of whales
is bound to be due for an update.
Rewrite the Secret Garden
but set in New York, updated
to modern times.  Everything
else can be the same, more
or less.  Not a new story
or even a reimagining:
an old myth told with a new meaning.
Nothing like that, not at all,
just dusting off a story sitting on a shelf
and taking it out again,
cleaned up, maybe,
polished and, perhaps,
put into contemporary clothes,
but not anything new.
Why should I need anything new either?
Hollywood seems to be doing
a lot better business than poetry.

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