#480 - the work of a poet is to be neglected

23.iv.21

480

2.83

the work of a poet is to be neglected

i.m. Rae Desmond Jones

 

though there are brief exceptions

a prize and soon the glitter goes

 

from time to time we have (death) cults

tears before bedtime generally then

 

poets are benched with the makings

dream up a muse with a selfie stick

 

it frustrates the hell out of the punters

should poets live and breathe

 

old poets feel that their powers are failing

young poets are yet to come into their own

 

there are only a few hundred in the whole country

each has the staff for taking stock

 

PA, irregular releases

consider them haruspex

 

the cryptic champions of Scrabble

dilettantes of dictionary  

 

high five themselves for lines and long before

canon in mind half theirs

 

once they drank ink

and now they whine

 

‘I am the greatest’, each poet thinks

no one measures but this is human progress

 

goes something like this

never sticks

 

need that special graffiti paint

all over the pages, the screen, to curb

 

still sad in their shells

scribble up, one and all  

 

poets far beyond and ahead of review

or criticism for an art

 

make me laugh

that’s where the money was

 

poets are sniffing along the mould trail

imagining fishes from loaves

 

they go blindly, blight amanuensis

(so name the first born girl)

 

poets are being put back in their boxes

(eventually pine)

 

sponsor a poet in humpy or garret

see them starve for sport

 

or else the public service

it’s all advertising they do

 

image from dust

to the mirror for more!

 

awkwardly poets persist in time

cultivate mystery illness

 

feel things in their bones

poets are continually confessing

 

there are always two types

we can start with those who say two types

 

then the others – the punctuators

very Victorian – caps to start a line

 

the seasonal compulsives

your one-off on holiday or party poet

 

then there’s the once upon a time mob

those with greatness before them yet

 

hypochrondro-klept

they live on kryptonight

 

ghoulish, gone in fear of abstraction

but maniac’s the main thing

 

tap on the shoulder

and they’re rarely there

 

poets are visited with tunes

put our words through the wash

 

ambiguous or not

common or garden poets

 

the muscular type

those lost to the weather

 

versus those who make it

the cynics, the stoics

 

caution approaching the epic of ‘we’

and poets of the truth once more

 

set them free from the oneness

(ashes to your best breeze let)

 

their selflessness can’t be explained

each is his her own ego machine

 

wheel them out for occasion

never was there pandemic of poets

 

but they can be gauged by funeral

Carla Zampatti, Les Murray

 

who does the thinking for this country?

the feeling? who’s to tell deep truth?

 

and who is over nation, taps at the skull

to see where it’s hollow?

 

need neither be dramaturgs, fabulists

some go to live in a typewriter

 

set up a colony there, family and friends

kind of a Jonestown where

 

poets just make up the hemlock Kool-Aid

you mustn’t mind the things they write

 

best not to read it all …

they’re quite used to that

 

sponsor a poet

there could be one on your street

 

it’ll cost you the smell of an oily rag

with/without mnemonics

 

they are a complete eco-system

each of them, I mean

 

and ‘wonderful’ the crowd claps hands

no one has to tell their love

 

not where a poet’s concerned

find them deep in someone’s thesis

 

there, equally unread

Rae was right when he said

 

they’re waiting for the others to get off

spurn a poet and later perne

 

they come in gyres, or fashions

and turn the climate round

 

nervous shuffle of the pages

they aim for earworm too

 

the best have Riven Arch

or back in the day at least

 

birds fly into them

bears climb out

 

with feathers, ever hopeful

kind of a plea – a poem

 

they do this whimper flicker thing

just when you think they’re almost out

 

poets die of sudden causes, sadly

live forever too

 

sponsor a poet

pen or a notebook

 

place in the sun

blank stone for auto-epitaph

 

(though epigram is best)

and will they ever do the dishes?

 

or yackety-yack, lounge to floor

and deeper, deeper, no one’s deeper

 

than them

everyone hates a reliable poet

 

it goes against the grain

blow in your ear and brush the fur backwards

 

it’s all in the description

though you can’t call it a job

 

aliens among us

favourite fifth column

 

and could be anyone

the odd occasional froth at the mouth

 

see how they’ll seek inspiration

under a rock or roll around

 

they suffer from many conditions

and squeal when they put something out

 

some breezily

some blood the stone

 

holes are to dig

trees to bark up

 

many seek a place

in language such as we all use

 

nor can they ever be trusted with words

lawyers, pollies can’t keep up

 

and just when you thought…  

scroll down scroll down

 

tomorrow there’s more

this is a way of life