Dan Enache Poet Free verse

The Poet's Responsibility

The Poet's Responsibility

It is the responsibility of society to let the poet be a poet,
it is the responsibility of the poet to stand on street corners giving out poems,
and beautifully written leaflets and leaflets they can barely stand,
because the rhetoric screams from them like an open wound bleeding.

Because the rhetoric screams from them like an open wound bleeding,
it is the responsibility of the poet to be lazy to hang around idle,
to loiter on corners and prophesy the future with a loud mouth,
it is the responsibility of the poet not to pay taxes for war.

It is the responsibility of the poet to go in and out of ivory towers,
and two-room apartments on Avenue C and fields out there,
from buckwheat fields and military camps full of soldiers,
it is the responsibility of the poet to speak truth to power.

As the Quakers say with their quiet and confident voice,
it is the responsibility of the poet to learn truth from the powerless,
it is the responsibility of the poet to say many times in public:
there is no freedom without justice and this means economic justice.

It is the responsibility of the poet to say many times in public:
there is no freedom without justice and this means economic justice,
and love justice for all those who love and all those forgotten,
it is the responsibility of the poet to sing this in all the melodies.

In all the original and traditional tunes of singing and telling poems,
it is the responsibility of the poet to listen to gossip and pass it on,
in the way stories decant the story of our lives unfolding,
there is no freedom without fear and bravery walking hand in hand.

There is no freedom if earth and air and water don't continue,
and children also continue to be born and dream freely,
it is the responsibility of the poet to watch the world with keen eyes,
and cry out like Cassandra but be listened to this time.

The poet must be the prophet who sees the disasters coming,
but not like Cassandra cursed never to be believed ever,
but like a new Cassandra whose warnings the world listens to,
the poet is the eye that sees and the mouth that cries and the hand that writes.

It is the responsibility of the poet not to be silent when all others are silent,
to speak when speaking becomes dangerous and forbidden,
to write when writing can mean imprisonment or death,
because the poet's silence is the death of a society's conscience.

It is the responsibility of the poet to be lazy but also always awake,
to hang around corners but see everything that happens around,
to prophesy but also listen to the whispers of those below,
to be in towers and in streets to be everywhere and nowhere.

It is the responsibility of the poet not to be silent when all others are silent,
to speak when speaking becomes dangerous and forbidden,
to write when writing can mean imprisonment or death,
because the poet's silence is the death of a society's conscience.

It is the responsibility of the poet to say economic justice matters,
that you can't speak of freedom when children die of hunger in the street,
that love must be just not only sentimental and empty,
that freedom without justice is just a beautiful lie for the wealthy.

It is the responsibility of the poet to pass on gossip and stories,
because in them hides the truth that history forgets and erases,
to decant the story of life as storytellers have always done,
with patience and attention to detail and love for word and sound.

And above all it is the responsibility of the poet to cry out,
to cry out like Cassandra who will be listened to this time,
to keep an eye on this world and see the dangers coming,
and never be silent from fear or opportunism or weariness.

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