Couplets
Couplets for Alexander
I.
A couplet on the Nature of this night
much as the day, merely dimmer, sans light.
Of the Nature of Day, much more to say
in light and verse, in work and scholar play
with words and punctuous points—heeding style 5
of tradition spilled in ink, lines by mile
strewn on tablets, rasa or other
penned or penciled to sister, brother, mother
of poetic appreciation; blood
no medium, but passion in the flood 10
of letters: words rich in image, meaning,
philosophies of youth, beauty, being,
and all inherent in humanity.
Of the humble and its divinity
we have volumes to write and sing and cry 15
in wilderness infinite as blue sky
seems, but perspective evolves with knowledge
gained of science in and out of college
from studied teachers to self-taught scholars
who gain liberty through thrown-off collars; 20
how the mighty rise upon swollen waves—
technology builds, while convention raves
on possibilities half-formed, newborn
of Blake’s grain of sand.
Oh! how the forlorn
Classicists mourn over Nostalgia lost 25
while emailing brothers-in-arms tossed
round the globe—winded dandelion fluff
pollinate, broadcast as their verbal stuff
over WiFi and cable global-wide
and into space over broad-band to slide 30
tickling into extraterrestrial ears;
shrewd fantasy to allay human fears
of existing alone in godless time.
Such a relative world, now. So some
say from their laboratory dens, while from 35
headlines blares nothing new, report nothing
but what’s transpired since we found something
more than survival in and out of caves.
Exodus the cave to become but slaves
of our own devices—and vices, too, 40
as well as contention over virtue.
This human race has run so far, and yet
stumbles over its members-how forget
lessons learned over eons and handed
down to progeny? Instead they’re bonded 45
to foolish pride and Prometheus’ loss—
how circumcised of foresight? Yet that loss
figures too prominent in history
to deny. Why try? Every mystery
ever conceived has to some measure found 50
answers-poets and prophets propound
such wisdom from pulpits and from pages
down from first history and through the ages.
Learned men study myths and legends not for
clever stories, though that they have, but for 55
lessons learned of perceptive ancestors;
such is the purpose of study and lectures.
Every story paints a picture, every
picture tells more or less of a story,
and the circle is clasped by some lesson 60
or moral. Pedagogy should lessen
the risk of ignorance and consequence,
dispel superstition, prove and enhance
hunger for knowledge, and make confident
the pupil, never fearing dissonant 65
opinions, but rather inviting all
challenges as means to further enthrall
Reason via logical discourse. Sound
as such may seem, such is too seldom found
within halls of academe-more tragic 70
that in governance, the death of logic.
What wonder poetry has nearly lost
its rhyme in relative abandon: cost
uncounted for wisdom gained! What of lost
lines in verses so miniscule, too weak, 75
impotent of salvation in this bleak
desolation of faith lost paradise.
But up from disasters’ ashes must rise
roses of surcease! All is not forfeit
to Death but becomes Life’s fodder to beget 80
more life and perpetuate itself. Ad
infinitumNature’s cycle-not sad
nor happy-it merely is. Life goes on.
And so it is with passion; it goes on
in each breath, each breast, each new stardust life 85
of each generation born to its strife
and peace, love and hatred, clem[1] and surfeit,
shit and pomp, health and ill, war and forfeit;
faith is belief in continuation
of precedented cycles and station 90
of stars in recognizable patterns
into perpetuity. Such matters
beg questions not so much of meanings
as to why this human need for gleanings
of wisdom from what could be but mere chance 95
arbitrary experiments, this dance
of Nature and God—Oblivious?
Or caring as parents toward mortal us?
II.
Sees every poet himself as prophet?
Some see poets as mere mediums 100
marching to beats of channel-surfers’ drums,
pens lockstepped to ghostly inspired lines
and scribbling thoughts from all-unknowable signs
only sensitive souls can read. But wait!
What reason in such superstitious prate? 105
Whose poet-ghost haunted inspired Homer,
Ovid, Shakespeare, Pope, or Whitman—Homer
to America—Do they now haunt this
age’s bards: Knoepfle, Stokes, Collins—what list
can tell of all? Glück and Stein; Simic, Hass, 110
Skinner, Kooser, Scranton, plus note some lass
in Kansas yet unpublished; Meuller, Frisch,
Corrigan, Blackston, Robinette; no wish
can bring them all to publications’ light—
and yet they write. Yet, they write. Still they write! 115
More names let our canon boast: Pitchford, Huck,
Coffey, Conger, Humor, Simson—with luck
our list may grow. Each new line to enrich
our art and lives. Destiny fickles which
shall rise what heights: Genevieve and Leonard, 120
Neginsky among our sainted-sinnered
host; Overcash and Rogers, Logan, Smith,
Howard, Mason, and Stevens, all whose pith
as yet half-discovered hints true genius.
Myriad these poets in our genus: 125
we who write to live the life of passion,
mind, and poesy; we who, in our fashion,
contribute what we are to the greater
cause of collective art, the greater
cause of making sense for all who hunger 130
after reason and rationale—thunder
suppositions for life’s significance,
elusive proposition making sense
of what may have none intrinsic! But we
aspire to define abstractions clearly 135
through concrete media and precisely
chosen diction. Language is our framework,
syntax, pun, conceits, metaphors but work
as tools in the wordsmiths’ arsenals.
Craft separates poems from mere journals. 140
Plentiful as passions are our verses:
sonnets on love never fill our purses,
but a sestina on life fulfills us
of a soulful moment; a rant to cuss
life’s inequities is good to clear foul 145
humors and vent the spleen; a well-layed vowel
drives rhythm to its target as certain
as precise image drives off uncertain
premonition; crowns of seven stanzic
poems push reason past sudden panic 150
as much a liberated lyrics sing
up rosey-fingered dawn to, rising, fling
off ebony night’s silver sequined shawl;
on strains of aubade, Phoebus shines on all
another day to start inspired. Muse 155
to poet on zephyr’s wings whispers use
to ballad and incite their pens to work;
How we ode to all we can, never shirk
opportunity—though oft defer them
in a moment inconvenient—random 160
though they all too often seem. Villanelle
to tell it over, sing it on, to quell
incessant itches in the mind. Dogma
we detest outright as overwrought drama;
didactic strains must ever decorum 165
heed: too strong a word, the crowds abhor ‘em,
but sans authority, ignore them! Yes,
ever greater, the attitude to bless
for ten wrongs have not the power of one
deed done well for good. How much more the sun 170
brings life than storms can tear it down. More real
far the strength of one kindly word to heal
than in a thousand words to do one ill.
This our knowledge, our power, salvation
spoken in words—divine revelation 175
from within. Our responsibility,
as all knowledge is power, ability
to respond to life and who and what we
be—regardless of names, divinity
is birthright to all. Poets are prophets 180
of this mystery, some unknowing of it,
others steeped in its tradition. Yet we
know not whence knowledge; some epiphany
teaches us, though articulate we may
or may not learn to do overt as day, 185
yet in shadows it will out. Subconscious
they creep into our lines, to their surface
as, unaware, we think we write one
subject, only to find another done.
Who’s to say whence came their words, or even 190
ascribe ownership to phrases? (Even
odds, more care of thought and credit than cash
runs through their minds—yet profit not abash
them; petty god stomach must, will be fed!)
More the verses from a beggar’s poor head 195
by far than scripture from a fattened bard,
and more is the wisdom of those tried hard
and tested well than petty sons of riches.
III.
From the void of Dullness must ever rise
Order and Reason, arching slanted skies 200
under name of whose authority none
may say, for Mystery holds for the one
what cynicism ceases another;
Faith varies from human one to other
as star from star, though gathered upward 205
in constellations, still apart as sward
from sky. Sky, ever-sheltering Father,
whose thunder rends silence as though to bother
some conscience astray, yet how he comforts
benighted minds with placid blue, supports 210
discomfited hearts with diamond quilts and
downy blankets of smile-twinkling stars. Hand
to eyes, how we gaze with love or lust up
and up to question all and all—the Cup,
the Bull, the Centaur, sundry myths untold 215
or lost in history’s all-devouring fold
of page and pages in Eternity’s tome.
But how again tear dreaming eyes to home,
that messy blissless place of Paradise
Lost for the sin of a lie—and which lie 220
told countless generations? The chicken
or the egg? Fruits’ beautiful temptation,
desirous of the eye and good to eat,
sweet in nectars unbidden or unmeet
by whose authority—or deceptive 225
ontologies of jealous obsessives
who sought control over what they had none?
Who’s to say no angel doctrined those men
into stupid superstition on a lark;
fancy given free reign in light and dark 230
to do what will they did no purpose
but angel entertainment? But suppose
there was a Truth; was it, too, crucified
to this side or that of chosen who died
for sins none remember? Furthermore, who 235
was the Chosen—likelier perhaps, who
were the Chosen, and are they born still
in latter days sans apostles to shrill
their holy cries throughout these mortal lands?
Are all born sinners in Gods’ angry hands? 240
Puzzle this world an hermeneutic:
part to whole, to death has life renewed it.
One universe in myriads of grains
sand—lose this on one hand, it gains
again some otherwhere—this collective 245
baffles all, and otherwise objective
scholars lose brilliant minds in relative
absence of reference. In minutia
lost to scope, lost to range, and Confusia
becomes their Babel in seeming contra- 250
diction (what’s in a name?), and their mantra
becomes, “Prove, prove, prove; or, if not, disprove!”
In disparity how can they approve
any but principles most general?
Like tides, theories wax and wane; funeral 255
one leads to rise of others. Tangential
hypotheses tumble consequential
to debunking of dependant theora,
which in turn belie once-golden data,
and follows new empirical versions 260
of what was thought before. Still the questions
proliferate. A house one brick short imperfect?
Or one extra? But if it shelter gives
in a treacherous land where danger lives
alongside peace? Of function grown to form, 265
is this perfections’ measure? How conform
to standards unwritten, unstated? How
judge sans law, sans referent? Why allow
we precedents on grounds uncommon? From
here to there: eternity. Freedom 270
a mere ideal, yet sans its hope, what hope?
Meritocracy is a slipp’ry slope
of privilege built on inequality
of birth’s and life’s accidents as surely
as Aristocracy’s deposed kingdom. 275
Still, we cry injustice as though freedom
were more than fable. Nature is struggle;
with orbs of varied fates, life must juggle
one need or other—what choice in dropping
this to pick up that? No way of stopping 280
once such systems start. Perpetuosity
becomes rule: such a curiosity
to consider some being outside Time
who might consider, mundane or sublime,
any work of any one in Billions— 285
twelve at home, and what myriad millions
on orbs unknown? And yet consider God
as the whole in which Man, dubious clod
of dust and spirit, is but one portion
in the infinite mass. What distortion 290
of reason might give us faith he heeds us?
How little is man to think himself aught!
Still ever slave to shit and piss and snot,
the interminable lure of the groin
in prime, with its resultant lust for coin, 295
drawn to spawn until blood cools from age
and experience—then past youth and rage
to persevere in life-long industry
for sake of that bravest quest—fostering
next generations and other offspring; 300
those strong new cubs born of passions’ wild fire
and lion-hearted youth. How they aspire
to lofty flights! Yet they too will some day
find that choice will press them to somehow pay
prices too high for comfort. Innocence 305
the coin of age and grim experience
only the pretty young corpses retain.
And yet what choice for those who would refrain?
IV.
Aristocracy of the fringe-monkey
sect! Poet, artist, all literati 310
spread throughout the climes, each latitude
fixed not of quantity nor attitude
poetic contains some bard or penster
of rhymes and lays, ever so sinister
to powers and regimes they’d glad depose 315
with sublimated umbrage from which flows
lines of such propaganda subversive
as must seed revolutions recursive
in Nature’s cycle of dogma and mean
despotism! We mean toward justice 320
to aim the might of mobs at turning Janus
to his better face, that men may in peace
relatively live. Turning from the state
of stasis pre-emptive—to delegate
a more collective will on social good 325
before the leaden men of egotism
ruin the good through commercialism
and unchecked greed, feeding on the happy
idiots they see as lemmings who be
at precipice and ready to leap off 330
for word from up top.
Let’s not let them scoff
at honest citizens who struggle day
in, day out, wondering where or will they
have a day in the sun. American Dream!
Where has gone our elegant crystal stream 335
of hope in a better life? Fallen! Oh,
crooked E and cash-bloated CFO!
How multitudinous your travesty
against the dream and dreamers-those vested
in your corporate fraud! Hang you now your head 340
before believing masses, but that head
still shakes denial of restitution;
for lack of will and just resolution
you hide in your dirty-moneyed tower
and so flaunt your legal loop-holed power 345
in the faces of America broke!
Sans remorse. With one felonious stroke
you paupered a generation.
Be not
smug in your District Pennsylvania hut
oh despot of deposing regime! You, 350
lying out your Bonzo puss! Oh, yes, you,
Mr. W! You got so many
things to explain, and it’s far too many
lies you’ve already told: what of weapons
and mass-destruction; and oil barons 355
growing fat in your close acquaintance;
Fascist patriotism; acceptance
of God in the State contrary to laws
which you swore to uphold—those very laws
on which liberty stands aside Justice! 360
Only now her breast is covered, just as
though the Anti-general had Vetoed
what no American despot vetoed
before—law balanced with human kindness,
but it flows no more from Justice’s breast 365
on the Hilltop. God Damn the Patriot Act!
And the regime that would keep it intact!
But more is the world than trouble at home
where fitful we sleep in liberty’s gloam:
twilight of Democracy in later 370
days of complacency’s benumbed prater
relative to those nostalgic ages
when educated men raised dissonant
voices against tyranny—resistant
to sacrifice comfort for true or false 375
security. But how they humbly face
this status quo today! Are we not men
and women of merit? Count it not sin
to grow fat on the babes of malnourished
mothers for the sake of ease? Stand idly 380
by and watch dictators so wildly
and relentlessly despoil our planet?
All heaven, hosts of angels forefend it!
Raise we now our thundered voice of reason
in defense of equity, ‘gainst treason 385
guised as patriotism, in the name
of that Golden Rule to which all lay claim
in one manner or other: Do unto
each as you would to other or unto
self! Grab peace by your heart and hold tight! 390
Not with guns, but with good words shall we fight
tyranny of our consummate failures;
lead ourselves proactive so no fate lures
us to infamy and desolation.
What happened to Paradise, golden dreams 395
of better days, loving ways, Heavens’ beams
manifest in our collective heart? How
gone? How revive? Get us back to the Now
in which we truly live, this moment bring
back our harmony and good will. Let’s cling 400
to the dying dreams till they renew our
faith—faith not in this or that sweet hour’s
prayer, but in ourselves and fellow selves—
Samaritan neighbors deny themselves
the luxury of hypocrisy and 405
injudicious judgement baseless but on sand
blown this way or that in deserts barren;
In the scope of centuries, what can man
accomplish? Ruin is as easy as
easily disremembered. Forget as 410
we will, some coming generation must
learn that time shall remember best and most
those who build. Consider Egypt’s Pharaohs,
pyramids eons old; what scholar knows
greater wonders? Though built on backs of slaves 415
they constructed a world beyond the caves
of mutilating ancestors. Why learn
we not our histories’ lessons? Why earn
we not our progenies’ adulation
by way of building? Modernization 420
must have greater benefits to our race
than more efficient killing! Can we trace
a plan for salvation in this present age?
Plan for a future in which no wars rage?
V.
But let us refrain from dire madness 425
and return to thoughts of lighter sadness.
What myths create to comfort troubled sons
whose faith questions all these previous ones
that justify murder and rationalize
chaos? What new testament of kind lies 430
to mollify downhearted mothers? New
scriptures of hope, parables to renew
God in the hearts of lost generations;
not lost in the Fallen sense, but to them—
selves and to their race. A new branch and stem 435
on the Old Tree: faith in some redemption
attainable at life’s closing verses.
Salvation that saves, not that reverses
some simple lapse inherent to newborns
as though cast from God; nothing so forlorn 440
as the old dispensations, but owing
more to inherent goodness; not sowing
discord among subgroups, but one mending
fences so long dilapidated by
neglectful blame and habitual lies 445
in the name of all that once was holy.
Let us write a new prophecy, wholly
of hope and consolations’ restoration:
this new apocalypse of creation
by a caring Nature, benevolent 450
in its mortality—munificent
in its character. Unequivocal
in sure forgiveness and perpetual
as universal motion in its grand
extravagant generosity—and 455
ever insistent on responsible
action on part of everyone able.
For Love so built the world, it gave its all
that each creature on its own might fall
or rise according to its own equal 460
chance of will, skill, strengths, and constitution;
furthermore, all who fall shall rise again
in Nature’s cycle—some to new begin
from this or that perspective. This turn plant,
the next a beast of burden; no infant 465
is born but to die—to rise but to life
once more. This is our resurrection hope,
that once gone, once more return. One life Pope,
next but a factory worker in Lisbon.
How time affords us no patient instant 470
when we long for what eludes us! Pray God,
but hear no answer? Hope is a dirt clod
beaten by the rain to feed May flowers;
pluck one now, smell it sweet in long hours
when morbid thoughts entrance. Hope is your right 475
by life-clutch it through darkest hopeless night!
Forth from oblivion a voice called out:
Original thought—I AM—with this shout
came God’s realization to itself,
“I Am!” And light erupted down each shelf 480
of newly forming Heaven. “Yes! I am!”
rang that voice of one now known as “I Am.”
Pleased with echoes of original song,
God sang forever, and song sang along.
But soon God began to wonder: I am 485
but what am I? What means this, ‘I am’?
God sang its song again its soul to still,
but learned that it was lonely. So God’s thrill
was turned despair, the light began to dim.
What curiosity, thought God, to swim 490
through empty All alone. I reach this hand
and thought an object makes; stretch out this hand
and what was thought is gone. I speak my word,
shapes form, conform to thought. Then this My word:
let be what will answer Who I Am! Now 495
cast this being like me, and yet allow
it in a frame—call it Time—and play out
each phase of what I Am from here throughout
this frameless All. Give it understanding
equal to mine, though kept within binding 500
frame of Time. And make it Aware I am. . .
VI.
. . . and now the enlightening angel to me
comes with visions as to John’s Patmos he
flew and granted prophetic light to eyes
open to them. Who knows what angel flies 505
but to tell of what is or could or should
be in this world? Oh gods, but that we would
their wisdom know! And so. This prophecy
belongs to all through this my humble me
to carry on: Our Salvation belongs 510
to all. Regardless of our rights or wrongs,
vice or virtue in heavenly eyes is moot,
long as we live the life we feel to suit
our truth—but knowing false to ally
goals we espouse is true sin. We belie 515
our own lives, minds, souls by virtue of vice
in willful misconduct, naughty or nice
to no deliberate reason. Motive
then becomes as much as saintly votive
in the scales of Nature’s justice: alone 520
we judge ourselves as fit to hang or stone,
and our lives become the will of sentence
we pass upon ourselves—and such sentence
so many times appealed with prejudice
against the judge and jury for juris 525
imprudence. Despite such sanctions we beg,
we ourselves flay our flesh, stand one good leg
against the other and, lame, walk our lives
uneven. Innocence never survives
against its own testimony, faultless 530
though it is. How often feigned, we dauntless
walk planks our own making and fall headlong
into abysses we ourselves have dug
with shovels of judgement against others
we in soulful truth would label brothers, 535
except for fear of sharing plights unkind
called consequence—and oh how we turn blind
eyes on our own actions to avoid truth
when it comes to us too clearly. Uncouth
we count the stains of shit, though we daily 540
move our bowels in animal need—daily
given to the mundane, necessary
functions of the flesh. How fine and airy
we pretend to be when unalone—Not
that gross mammalian thing, oh, no! Not 545
some vulgar beast of depravity and
impulses uncontrolled, with organ, gland,
tissue, and bone—but some spirituous
angel fallen just below heaven’s fuss
of radar and GPS.
God came down 550
then, to tell my angel friend her white gown
to don for a ball they’d give for it was time
the angels rejoiced-for no other rhyme
or reason than God told them “Dance!” What harps
they play before my mortal eye; none carps 555
to hear a favorite song, but hears her own
within herself—this much was somehow shown,
though know I not in flesh or spirit how
was shown or made known, nor whether to bow
in angels’ presence, for innocent they 560
are of humility and pride—that way
is for mortals-and only as to cope
for experience in temporal hope,
where no perspective is accurately
seen but by retrospect and then rarely 565
understood. So it is with human things,
this for granted taken, other sharp stings
greeted as punitive actions taken
by some angry sentient god given
to childlike tantrums of violence 570
to the purpose of—what? Some justice
arbitrary as language conventions,
corrupted by the varied traditions
of as many other tongues and cultures
as there are peoples? What insane vultures 575
of human grief decided this injustice?
Jealous oldsters’ impotent prejudice
of youth remanded it to hell for all
time. Such patriarchs invented our Fall,
made of God some schizoid fiend condemning 580
vast majorities to th’ eternal ring
of fire and brimstone—cast out excrement
from His creation! Grief his sacrament
ever after in infinite darkness,
separation from a loving Highness! 585
Such the Fallen, such the Fall! An apple
to Eve keeps the creature to grieve; ample
cause for disinheritance? Such a tall
precipice from which to forever Fall
sans Hope of restitution or rescue! 590
Seems so arbitrary a judgement, too,
sans consideration on all hands. Why
set a child to fail, expect it not cry,
then slap it with punitive paw? Such flaw
indicts the parent—this is what I saw. 595
VII.
Now of the rise of man, his upward rise,
sing oh poets, each own muse, sing the skies
down to earth and heaven to us attend!
Human. Self-determined as we intend,
so shall remove damnation from all souls 600
on power of will, cup our golden bowls
with strength of spirit, weave the silver thread
eternal, immortal. God never said
His creatures were less than He, and Nature
judges not to known affect. What mature 605
scientist can translate, knows her Reason;
remonstrates not in articulation
any can translate. Why assume her voice
angry? Nature allows us every choice
we make. Her laws are true; Her justice swift, 610
not cruel as human, Her gentle gift
is mercy: efficient death. It is we
who prolong suffering, and it is we
who judge unfairly, punish too severe,
slay innocents with our guilty—yet fear 615
injustice in the accidents of fate!
Let it change this day, change never too late
but to save one or a few. Not from Death,
whose power is absolute as is breath
in the living, but save from the dying: 620
that ever-awful state of soft sighing
in which we Live not at all, but rather
pass the quickened days. Nor shall we gather
at the river (Styx?!), neither shout “thou shalt!”
not slander celestials for our faults. 625
It is on my head, my heart, my life, My
soul that rests responsibility. Why
be aught but accountable? Such power
each must rise to take in a conscious hour,
make own and with all pursue what’s known true 630
to self internal, eternal; imbue
self with determination and moxy
enough to do the right, not by proxy,
but direct from intent to action. Will
is power to influence. Let His will 635
be done who sets about to enact it.
Should that will bend on destruction, tacit
we shall never be, but join our purpose
to despots’ will and execution oppose.
Salvation is the power of the self 640
to deny damnation. Gift it Yourself!
This to you is as much as is to me
in the most general terms it can be
as it applies to all and one alike;
thus in greatest personal manner, strike 645
the matters’ heart by right—hermeneutic
reversal—sound to hearing euphonic:
causal effect affected confusion—
species Sapiens, part in the fusion
of race, yet solitary you are you 650
alone—yet indispensable too
the whole; and who’s to know what part each plays
in something so vastly immense. Yet preys
doubt on our faith to demand answers not
given in language comprehensible. 655
Dissonant note in a song gone too long
in spaces’ empty silence! We belong
to Mystery. Only god Death offers
other than questions. Truly, Life prefers
ambiguity to Reason’s dead-end 660
of final answers. How perpetual
is life? And into what conceptual
borders can we couch the questions proper?
But no. Life is question. How improper
it would be to cease such inquisitions 665
as our imaginations lust after!
Universe’s voice is heard in laughter—
not in the despotic guffaw of hate,
but in the jovial glee of sensate
God—whate’er she be—and mellifluous 670
giggles from a child learning morphous
questions of why and why and why and how
does this or that or some other—that cow,
why do we milk her; what does blue taste like;
does God kiss His angels; is my red trike 675
better than Joey’s; what shall I be when . . .
Is it any wonder to adults, then,
that they continue such questions beyond
reason and learning and even beyond
winter’s encroachment of argent crowns, ache 680
of bone, and forfeit of bitter mem’ry?
When final syllable fails final rhyme,
when silent somnolence covers this grave,
will flowers grow no more, blooming cups save
no dew to grace Nature’s beauty; shall life 685
not continue as it has to spite strife
and the infinite struggle of living
things? Shall the Giver cease of its giving?
So, in all the wisdom of the ages
we learn that love is love, and its wages 690
are life perpetuating. Comes to this,
lessons learned certain cannot go amiss:
come what may, petition heaven above,
all we are, all we do, comes down to Love.
That is the essence of the All and Time. 695
Epilogue
Come we now to the bitter end of rhyme?
Some say, others deny—evolution
demands changes by subtle mutation;
verse grows stronger with the poet as grows
each poet to the craft. If it not shows 700
in later verse some gain in skill, then craft
that poet has shunned for else-such is craft
that it must be plied and practiced constant
with deliberate action and thought. Instant
success is seldom instant, more seldom 705
success . . . Indeliberate practice, random
exercise strengthens this or that, but true
skill gains only from choice wisely drew.
Let poesy thrive again that we may
live in humanitas. Let none betray 710
the muse; verse inspired should flow swiftly
from Masters of word and verse. How gently
Terpsichore should step to tunes singing
from pen and page, each new rhythm ringing
novelty or calling to arch themes bright 715
new metaphor, poignant and right
for this current age! Sing the muse
alive! Rock, Soul, Rhythm & Blues—
prosody instill in the words
to carry each minor-key note outwards 720
toward generations now aborning
and those yet to come. Adorning
verse in bling and bluster straight pretense—
a child playing at being big. Dispense
with this guttural illusion; massage 725
the lines to music, lest the raw passage
of ill-considered words cause poesy
permanent harm in the ears of our people.
Stack the lines with craft, deliberate space,
prosody, measure, form, stanza, true grace- 730
no one needs a ranting ingrate. Beauty
remains the soul’s search, though taste makes beauty
change from now to then. Still, verse is constant
in that it must speak to humanity
of itself. Should the human be absent, 735
the verse is void, useless, pithless, null.
[1] In Mary Barton, the author uses “clem” as meaning “to starve.” Thus, this author licenses “clem” to mean “lean times” or “starvation.”
