God Bless You, Mr. Salinger

If you ever wanna be referenced for the rest of your life,
And never left alone-
If you wanna have silly ska and punk bands beat the crap out of your work
Analyzing every word you've ever written
Repeating them, illustrating them,
And alluding to them with every repetitive chord-
Write a book like Catcher in the Rye.
If you want every movie ever made to have some echo of your character,
Your protagnist repeated, your settings revisited,
And your themes dug up like dinosaur bones-
Take a crazy seventeen year old, give him a dialect,
And name him Holden.
Toss in a exactly one hundred and twenty six "phonies",
Sell it to every English class that ever existed,
And you've got yourself a classic every killer reads.
God bless you, Mr. Salinger.
You gave meaning to one more hopeless teenager.


I'm really not as cynical as this makes me sound... in fact, I'm quite in love with this man.