26 million likes
Sep 13
In 1995
Leonard Cohen was like:
I have seen the future,
Brother. It it is murder.
In 2025
Murder gets 26
Million likes. And you’re like—
Where did that come from?
You know that old photo
Of the integrated office,
The modern 90s office,
Watching the OJ verdict—
Where did that come from?
That was the end of the end
Of history. The future laughs.
Oh, normiecons, my poor
Abandoned friends, drift
On Bermuda’s last floe,
This is that on steroids.
You know: Cohen was great
But Kipling was greater.
I burned some incense. He’s
Hard to reach these days.
Eventually he was just like:
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
With terror and slaughter return—
(I had to look up “copybook.”)
My most satisfied friends!
Penguins under palm trees,
Elated at your wacky tour,
Your values will not help you here.
No herring course these reefs.
They are patrolled, as is
That warm inviting sand—
America! Your sweet century
Just a Jenga of debt,
Debt clean to the bone,
The blood, the lymph, the soul.
Your kids read Fanon and Foucault.
You funded football stadiums,
Occasionally shaking your head.
Well, I don’t know about that,
You said. But let’s not go too far—
Where did that come from?
It was everywhere! Always!
Long before you were born!
Wallace got a million votes—
You shut your eyes, and grilled,
Just racking up debt,
Debt deep in the bone,
The blood, the lymph, the soul.
I was an idiot too. I thought
Jeff had lost his Mutt—
The bad cops turned good,
Blowing the whole act.
Race magic went mainstream,
With “Eros and Civilization”—
Punk itself was dull. Remember
The Dead Kennedys? So edge—
Now they all live on the beach.
What could there possibly be
For the young and mad to believe
(But Mom and Dad, never),
In this limp millennium?
In Germany in the 70s
They tried with pedos:
A bridge too far.
What new satanic gas
Could turn that sinister motor?
It was empty and we were free.
The Gods of the Copybook Headings
Replied, as my finger went back
Again, and again, to the fire:
Murder. We will always have murder.
