Paperboy

The salacious print smudged all who stared
Too long, their eye sockets dripping with burnt slush 
Heads down to the soil where insect life strides

Our skins are hued and coded
Signals to a divinity best left
Unsaid yet fully comprehended
As lightning defines a system

And here we sway uneven and frivolous
Humanitarian responsibility to a language
Known only to a winged few
Now is as good a time as any

Thurston Moore is a founding member of Sonic Youth, a band born in New York in 1981 that spent thirty years at the vanguard of alternative rock, influencing and inspiring such acts as Nirvana, Pavement, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, My Bloody Valentine, and Beck. The band’s album Daydream Nation was chosen by the Library of Congress for historical preservation in the National Recording Registry in 2006. Moore is involved in publishing and poetry and teaches at the Summer Writing Workshop at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. He divides his time between the USA and England. His memoir, Sonic Life, was published by Faber & Faber in 2023.