SNAKESKIN: The Poetry Webzine

Postmodernist:

I am the very model of postmodernism’s rituals

My world is made of language reinforced by strong habituals -

There’s nothing really out there, and there’s no one who exists for me –

And any people hearing this are other solipsists for me.

The world is in my head, I don’t believe in physicality;

I brilliantly create it all with magical reality,

Rejecting all experience with mystical depravity –

Ignoring Alan Sokal’s twenty-storey test of gravity.

Chic Chorus:

Ignoring Alan Sokal’s twenty-storey test of gravity.

Ignoring Alan Sokal’s twenty-storey test of gravity.

Postmodernist:

It used to be that science was the tool for every liberal

To use to show that kings and priests were selling mystic gibberal,

But now we want our new-age crystal-gazing fuddy-duddying

Not lectures, labs, experiments, or - goddess save us! - studying.

Chic Chorus:

But now we want our new-age crystal-gazing fuddy-duddying

Not lectures, labs, experiments, or - goddess save us! - studying.

Postmodernist:

Postmodern art is anything an artist may assert it is;

It isn’t hard to see what kind of formless blowhard blurt it is.

Where nothing’s good or bad there’s only infinite variety:

Your deepest held belief is someone else’s impropriety.

And even that’s not really real, your brain is just achieving it

Through language, fear, and habit, and believing in believing it -

Which means respect the rules of which each local god has sent a list:

You cannot be postmodern if you’re not a fundamentalist.

Chic Chorus:

You cannot be postmodern if you’re not a fundamentalist.

You cannot be postmodern if you’re not a fundamentalist.

Postmodernist:

We don’t distinguish good from bad – we can’t be preferentialist -

And sneer at beauty, justice, truth, and balance as essentialist.

Reality is all made up, and truth’s a triviality,

And science isn’t anything but jumped-up mysticality.

Chic Chorus:

Reality is all made up, and truth’s a triviality,

And science isn’t anything but jumped-up mysticality.

Postmodernist:

When I can claim there’s no there there, it isn’t verifiable –

Which means that any claim that I put forward’s undeniable;

When I can claim that making claims is meaningless is meaningless -

As if to try to sanitize a hospital by cleaning less;

When all I need to do is spout some double talk for victory

By claiming contradiction is itself a contradictory,

When all that science claims is that it’s merely hypothetical

Then heresy is always truth and every truth heretical!

Chic Chorus:

Then heresy is always truth and every truth heretical!

Then heresy is always truth and every truth heretical!

Postmodernist:

And so therefore we’ve cleared away the sciences’ dementedness,

And we are left to celebrate our contentless contentedness:

Our world is made of language reinforced by strong habituals -

We are the very models of postmodernism’s rituals.

Chic Chorus:

Our world is made of language reinforced by strong habituals -

We are the very models of postmodernism’s rituals.

Alan Sokal.

Read his account of the hoax with which he discomfited the high priests of postmodernism.

If you have any comments on this poem, Marcus Bales would be pleased to hear from you.