An Unexpected Turn of Events
I
A right became an unexpected left;
Nothing more important than subliminal
country miles that pulled me forward,
no destination or thought to why,
just my surprise. Some ten miles gone,
I felt a ray of grace; the reason
for this race, and as I chased a trace
of errant time – I thought of a line.
I felt a now in my existence,
and shared a smile with the corn silk
light that fed my way, and the wind
that blew the hair around my face.
A chance to share some thoughts of mine,
Within the realm of reason, street and rhyme.
II
Once upon a time, in Everyday,
the minutes and hours of the human
condition, the hopes and dreams, sadness
and screams, the cries of sedition,
the plight of the lost, intolerance
and ignorance, expressions of love
for country and man, were duly recorded
by a poet's hand, a composer who scored the lay
of the land. And mouth to ear, where needed,
we shared his composition, in celebration
of the word's intended mission-
food for thought. And then it stopped.
We gave poetry away to obscurity,
to the teachers of form and craft,
who slipped overboard in their zeal
to define the titles for the times,
of what is a "must read", for greed,
and intellectualizing need,
to feed their egos and their jobs.
Indeed.
With speed, they redefined
and refined the voice of inspiration;
imagination served with a mutant strain
of peas. Poetry beyond the realm
of good digestion, the cause
of painful indigestion in the mind.
They built a world of poetry,
that will never sing a child to sleep;
Mutant peas engender nightmares
in the young.
III
She said,
"I love the way my body moves when I read Seuss."
(For any traditional poet, this mom's good news)
"But what of street, the beat and passion;
the march of voices crying to be heard,
the visualizations from a well-wrapped word?
Can you read one and exclude the other;
is it all about the prize and what's in fashion?"
"No, it's about what I like. Last night,
I drank in Whitman's leaves, with a little
Shakespeare chaser. and tonight, I might
guzzle Ginsberg and savor Kerouac
like a fine wine in meandering
subconscious streams."
Who could disagree with her taste in words?
So I drank a little more Baudelaire and went
to sleep myself.
Copyright © Maggie Flanaganwilkie | Year Posted 2005
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