Originally posted on 6/28/2009.  

our rules say

mourn the famous
and those made famous
by dying

so I shall write a poem of mourning
in which I confess that I
do not mourn them
except in the sense 
of mourning those things 
they are no longer
here to produce
which I might have enjoyed
or employed
for my own purposes and 
satisfactions

behold
the tears of a consumer

those times I can use
a celebrity death
for my own purposes
are when I feel
most American