heavy hangs the head

i read an article today on the death of postmodernism
or:
the long-harbored wish to kill postmodernism

i read each word
every letter of every word
i made a conscious effort to do so
because i like to read things in their entirety
and it bothers me if i don't

i read the article without actually
reading it at all
true: i read every word
but i only glossed over the meaning of each word in my mind
so that
all i can say
with any degree of
certainty
or truth
without willfully deceiving myself
is that:
i read the article

i rejected terms like postmodernism
for being too vague and hard to define
for having been never properly defined by anyone

i rejected the author's theory that postmodernism
was a multi-faceted term and many-headed monster
he wasn't very clear in his definition and he didn't seem
very certain that he knew what he was talking about so
that
what i saw in my mind was a many-headed monster (true enough) flailing
its arms around too violently and too fast
to get a good look at it
a definition so chaotic that if you pointed a high-speed camera at it
you'd still end up with something resembling a
blurry polaroid

i rejected the author's laundered list of postmodernist trademarks:
metafiction, pop-culture self-reflexivity, the abolition of the traditonal narrative, the willful forgetting of modernism and everything preceding it
because all these things combined are too much for one person to remember
simultaneously

i rejected the author's unimpressive list of obscure postmodernist writers
because i only knew one name on the list and i felt like that was his fault

most of all: i felt like the article tried too hard to impress me
to convince me that the person writing the article was really super smart
which is why i reject postmodernism
and why i will never be able to understand why someone creatively-inclined
is more concerned with name-dropping and cramming their heads so full of critical trivia
that they have to drag it behind themselves everywhere they go
like an invalid brother or pet goldfish that you take for walks
not by walking it but loading it into a radio flyer and pulling it behind you
you say you're walking it but you're not
you just like the idea
you want so bad to be walking it
but you're not
and you're attracting attention to yourself
because you want that too

there's a point at which you no longer appear learned
or smart
a point at which i am no longer able to see you as an intellectual
or an academic
but a stuffy old man or woman in predictable attire
dragging a goldfish behind yourself because you want so bad
for it to look like something else