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.

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At land’s end there’s not much to hear
Lamentations of a blood-soaked legacy
Hymns of a haunted hemisphere

The severed scalp a poisonous souvenir 
That punctuates a psychotic reverie
At land’s end there’s not much to hear

Where once the glee of corporate cheer
Now the anguished cries of a doomed destiny
Hymns of a haunted hemisphere

Wailing women silenced by war profiteer
Frantic families imprisoned by poverty
At land’s end there’s not much to hear

Where once a hectic hope of frontier
Now the hush of extinguished epiphany
Hymns of a haunted hemisphere

Fueled 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.