Steel and Ideal

old songs, tired poems, languid in clotted veins, human condition, artistic renditions, nose-to-tail in ruts carved deep, of older stories, of blood, of heartache, of tragic mistakes, the greed of the caesar, pales beside tomorrow's smirk of the mogul, hoary stories made new with designer end paper, and we formless ones, spilling ink into ether, ankle deep in the slurry, of others, serving wars and empire, gimlet eyed at those self anointed who crouch in shadows, hawking snake oil disguised as benevolence, does the poet beatify ideas with the pen, or oxidize action, with words spent cheaply like carnival tokens, or perhaps banked into kindling, sparking blazes of verse, keystroked tremors of action, combusting we quench, steel and ideal, so blaze on pilgrim wordsmith, there's mettle in words and iron on a thousand lips…