#624 - at the tomb of the unknown poet

17.ix.21

624

2.259

at the tomb of the unknown poet

scribimus, lectionem non damus

 

for Peter Kirkpatrick

(while reading his academician’s hell tour)

 

adventure of the bottom drawer

and come all ye faithful

 

to the tomb of the unknown poet

where football players, art critics

dabblers all stripe

lift a leg

to pay their deep respects

 

where all remember

what feats of derring-do

in rhyme and out

by metronome

or gad

 

goes nowhere – that’s the point

 

old miseries and bible light

and lots of looping texts

 

here at the tomb

in media res

because such a poem cannot have begun

(but old as cliché itself)

 

no need to press that button

this eulogy won’t end

 

no one’s here

and no one remembers the language

this is a safe place!

 

where

much must be illegible

what fitted once in an archive box

now head of a pin

calls for libation

 

poker face presence tops the stalk

(the unknown poet’s deep thought)

 

and might this one have been a pretendy

                               or party poet?

(makes the cake on birthday, just the one a year)

should be buried in the estate agents’ section

but cannot matter now

 

we’ll never know

and that is the general way of things

unless an intentional fallacy

pathetic, if you prefer

this earth speaks them

the sky has words

 

pseudonymous!

come to the tomb of the invisible poet!

(in death just as in life)

 

and what a life!

like playing with the pornograph non-stop

just yourself

no one will know that you’re here

graveyard is the ideal place

 

spread bill of fare with poetastings

punters none the wiser

 

weeds grow from the untended heart

but these are smoke and mirrors

 

then you must be the flowers

cut through a stone to count the rings

 

bring lyre, bring timbrel to the dance

on sepulchre

and endlessly

 

this is just Canto the First

 

as shone as sun

one wanders lonely

 

at the tomb of the unknown poet

anonymous doggerel left

 

the tears of the crocodile made its own moat

now others may read, may be read

 

no one knows genius these days

 

it’s like one of those roadside shrines

where the child never known

is mourned by pitchfork

and anyone could burn

 

where throng and cast in anthem light

 

text bubbles up from the ground

haruspex summoned

won’t spill

 

this is the very rag and bone shop

journos set up but nothing to see

 

ladders! all Escher stairs

bung mazes

train the eye

 

here’s a tune at the top of the day

and hecatomb

 

fragments found

here laid to rest

 

self-blessing place

 

where ask

can juvenilia kill ya?

such mysteries our joy!

 

there may be the bones of several

each oracle of course, and roll  

(this is an unmarked grave)

 

scholars all appal

 

it’s best to be unintelligible

 

at the tomb of the unknown poet

monument shows the striking of a pose

or the moment when inspiration flashed

like Moses, and the tablets dashed

… or more like Moe… or Mo?

(it’s true survival’s comedy

it’s now you see it now you’re…

 

here, down from Helicon, they come

gossamer flimsy, if ever tressed

 

all this is over a rainbow of course

among the daffodilia

 

and you might have some trouble tracking it down

(map is written on water, after all)

 

I’m telling you this because you had to have been there

it was just that generation

and it’s always going to have been too late

(the recognition I mean, it’s the point of being dead after all)

 

the poet of note has a pyramid

and slaves entombed

and more who wish themselves that way

 

you’ll see no sign of the zeitgeist bard

but

in this section

and just along the way you’ll find tombs of –

the poet who waited to be discovered

the poet who took the bull by the horns

the parodist

the poet who got the prize

and the special award for the unrecognized

 

these just as anonymous now

as gone

 

in this particular vacant lot

(and though no one knows this yet)

at the foot of the unknown apparition

all nations gather

and none