The Cloneaid Kids

The Cloneaid Kids
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It’s all so confusing, declared the alien God
to the Cloneaid kids, on the edge of the volcano.
Our mother planet had perfect clones, not this……
Not the paint, feather, buckled leather
Ditto one..Ditto two
I am me and you are you. Ditto. Ditto. Yet different.

We are the same,
Said the Cloneaid kids, and not the same
Changing, evolving, metamorphosing
From one costume to another
Changing signatures in a designer society
Of the exquisitely fashionable. Ditto, yet different.

Evolving as Ziggy Stardust and David Bowie
Incarnations of KD Lang, Cher and Madonna
Evolving and self inventing at will
Replicating primitive ancestors and ancient drumbeats
Ditto-drumming the drumbeats of technoculture
Ditto Madonna. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto.

Madonna the dirty blonde
Madonna the platinum blonde
Black, brunette, redhead
Madonna the soft
Madonna the sensuous, simulating at will
Glamorous amorous Madonna. Ditto, yet different.

Madonna sexy, Madonna swelte
Changing effortlessly to hard muscular technobody
Madonna of the haute couture
Madonna of the drag
Of the hip in and of the far out,
Techno freak in technoland. Ditto. Ditto. Different.

That, said the Cloneaid kids, is us
Of costumes and plumes and multiple lives
Desire, beliefs and secret hives
Of labrets and barbells and bellyrings
Two for the price of one – ya hear?
Body painted? Body pierced? Funky lives unrehearsed.

We have it all, echoed the Cloneaid kids
Stainless steel bent navel barbell
with Playboy rabbit covered in Swarovsky crystals
And they searched for identity, the Cloneaid kids
Floating between the conflicting dread
Of the commonplace and the eccentric. Ditto. Ditto. Different.

Imitating, avoiding imitation
Singular, yet like him, us, them, Ditto.
Declaring allegiance to God and cause
To conform, to shock, to entertain
In search of self and identity. Designer bodies, but whose soul?
Cloneaid the bold, Cloneaid the beautiful. Ditto. Different.


Ditto in the Bronze age. Ditto in the computer age
New age plumage, gyrating, pulsating clone age
Irrational lemmings spaced out, dropping off the edge
of the volcano, long after the Cloneaid God has gone
And ancestral instinct to imitate has vaporized
Pursuing a chimera. Ditto. Ditto. Different.

Different, yet looking for God in blue jeans
Blue denims in America
Mao’s denims in China. All very blue.
Designer lives, designer dreams. Ditto, yet so different
Singing bell bottom blues in Cloneaid land
Ditto blues in ditto shoes and ditto soles. Ditto yet different.

While the stars go on their course
And the cooling earth puts an end
To the career of Cloneaid life
And the last Cloneaid kid becomes an angel
They’ll still be looking for the chimera on the edge
of the volcano. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto……Ditto. Different.