Put Them Out of Sight Now

Lay down your old ink pen... Rise from the table... Push back your chair. Gather them all up... Put them out of sight now... Place them safely in the cupboard Bare. Wrapped in stiff brown paper, Strung tightly together With thin white string; Turn over the smooth copper key; Resign yourself, reluctantly, To quietly leave them there. Left all alone to slowly gather fluffy Purple dust Like decorative porcelain plates, Whose bright pastoral scenes stand Timelessly paused, Hanging up alongside deserted stairs That arrive, unannounced, on a forlorn Landing of silent and closeted doors. The stanzas unawares of prevailing Moods, Scorned like long flowing ballroom Gowns That once swept elegantly across Polished floors:- Let them too dream contently Of far distant times, Lovingly locked away, Draped remotely over rattling hangers In Rosewood Regency cabinet sets Of upright hanging drawers. For the abandoned words Are no longer held in any great Regard Of their long forgotten gentlemen: Magnanimous in grandest victories... Ennobled in celebrated defeat. Those who sit trapped in dark oils Against gloomy backdrops of oaken Paneling, Lean hunting dogs lying faithfully At the heels of leather booted feet; Just old bones Securely interned under knitted sods Nurturing moist soils - Commended souls released and raised High above all earthly toils. Legends inscribed upon black marble slabs Proudly trumpet the everlasting glory Of "Gloria in excelsis deo"; Awaiting Rapture... Contented in Heavenly sleep; Whilst, exalting, stone cherubims shed Cold stone tears, raise stone hands, And, with much dramatic piety... Openly weep. Thus the poems endure but remain unread Of bloody battlefields ploughed under The furrow By the hardy ploughs honest moition; The rich brown earth enveloping over The torn Battle-Standard and dutiful solider... All crushed, splintered - violently Broken! Penned by poets that counted the Limbless and the dead; And heroic and desperate acts:- Most of which went unspoken; Where, When coursing across un-hedged Fields Of shattered conflict And failing, reinforced disrepair: The clattering of dulled tin horns - That once sounded on a more Fulsome and purer air! But, alas, Their poetry is already forsaken - Deviled by the tongues of unworthy fools! Held in judgement before a contemptuous Jury Whose objections so oddly perverse. Condemning those Romantic "heretics", Who, uncompromisingly enthused... That all poetic meter and foot, In which they did so ably converse, Should co-exist side by side - Honouring the sublimely flowing lines Of each and every beautifully constructed Verse!