Dilettantes Poems | Examples

Why Do We Question - Why Are We Here

Science
never answers
the primary
questions
it ponders
in circles
deck chairs
rearranged
Reciprocal
theorems
of self
aggrandizement 
indentured
to kingdoms 
where dilettantes
reign

Why
is there love
why
is there war
why 
are we human
why
do we grieve
Why
do we question
why 
is there joy
why
are there feelings
that
foster belief

Is 
consciousness
timeless
do thoughts ever die
is prescience
a quotient
does truth 
ever lie
Is looking
for answers
outside the true
realm
the act that 
betrays us
and damns us
— to hell

(Dreamsleep: March, 2025)

Knots Between The Pearls

A strand of pearls not tied with knots;
we’re held together — just a thread.
At times like sticky spider silk 
and other times a shred of string 
that aches and breaks and throws our pearls across the floor.

The clatter  scatter  marble-mess
of all the dirt and hurts we pretty-wrapped.
Without the knots between the pearls, we 
come undone. On hands and knees 
we hunt and gather what’s to be restrung —

each dressed-up sphere once a naked tear
accumulated once again, 
this time to tie ourselves and beads in line
to knot together “could-have should-have” shrugs 
and form a diff’rent rope of pearls …or a noose
 
and in this space of rest — the screws between the pearls,
we plot a dream more fluff than faith before the cobweb breaks. 
No doubt, we’re dilettantes in love bites art of making-up.

Knots may keep us stranded 
but nots will keep us apart.

Running For The Door

If you use the word languish
I’m stopping my read
When you speak the word nurture
 I’m far from intrigued  
If I hear you say milieu
I run for the door
Or when you spout genre
my ears to abhor
They’re chosen to impress
when the meaning is weak
Concealing the emptiness
of all that you speak
‘A labyrinth of dilettantes’ 
penning your verse
Can’t hide what is missing
— with these words you assert 

(The New Room: February, 2024)

No Cigar

You can’t teach poetry pro forma
it’s the effort of a fool
You can’t gain sagacity from a book
or by the golden rule

You can’t be what you haven’t lived
the safety net misleads
You can’t bleed with another’s blood
transfused each phrase deceives

The dance floor or the balcony
true seekers get to choose
And write those words their pain has forged
—that dilettantes misuse

(Dreamsleep: April, 2023)

Rebel In the Shade

Standing hidden off to the side
naked and alone,
his aura too imposing,
his cover all but blown

A target of those dilettantes,
consummate poseurs,
his space they had surrounded
—his legend to procure

(The New Room: November, 2021)

Word Nibbler

A jackdaw is stealing
my tote bag of unused words,
a rodentlike kibitzer, a pecking dictator
of the worthiness of sounds.
If I run out of bullets now
he will take over my range,
blue-pencil my graffiti,
he will denounce me
as a purveyor of insensible languages,
a peddler of demonstrations 
made for the amusement
of dabbling dilettantes.
Then I shall be defenseless.
I will have to render down
the fat of my mind
and when it is all as lean tree bark
it will be my own wickiup,
there I will wait
until he comes creeping again 
into my larder, aiming to rob me 
of my last cracked chicken bones,
my winter store
to make just a little broth
for my tongue.

Now Others Sung

Poets write from experience,
dilettantes rave and rant

A price demanded to feed the Sage,
wishing and hoping can’t

Magic to wrap around the words,
feelings and thoughts hard won

Beauty when lyrics belong to you
—in songs now others sung

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2017)

The 'Cafe'

A chat room for dilettantes
 —singing to the choir

(Villanova Pennsylvania: July, 2016)

Generation Lost

Married to introspection,
  we left for Paris

And with fools and dilettantes,
  got carried away

Living on melancholy,
  our quarter was poor

The Seine’s romance but fiction
   —our fantasies played

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

The Incarcerated Word

What was created to expose,
  now a fortress meant to hide

Bastions of higher learning,
  masking havens safe for lies

Where discourse once was treasured,
  the ivy droops and sighs

With comfort their true measure,
  the dilettantes all cry

Plato is disgusted,
  John Locke is more than riled

As a millennium of learning
  is mocked in false denial

Students weak and wounded,
  from those lessons never learned

Their tomorrow’s but a doomsday,
  their futures sure to burn

Those words were there to save them,
  both the hated and revered

All truth in dialectics
   —left abandoned by their fear

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2016)

Generation Lost

Married to introspection,
  we left for Paris

And with fools and dilettantes
  got carried away

Living on melancholy,
  our quarter was poor

The Seine’s romance but fiction
   —our fantasies played

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)

The Incarcerated Word

What was created to expose
  is now a fortress just to hide

A bastion of higher learning
  within a haven safe for lies

Where discourse once was treasured
  the ivy droops and sighs

With comfort their true measure,
  the dilettantes still cry

Plato is disgusted,
  John Locke is more than riled

As a millennia of learning
  is mocked in false denial

Students weak and wounded
  from those lessons never learned

Their tomorrow’s but a doomsday
  their futures sure to burn

Those words were there to save them
  both the hated and revered

All truth in dialectics
  —now abandoned by their fear

(Villanova Pennsylvania: March, 2016)

Literary Circle

I feel a sense of déjà vu as I listen
to the cacophony of voices:
dilettantes discussing poetry 
under baroque chandeliers. Masquerading 
as avant-garde writers or bona fide critics 
(black turtlenecks; color is an anomaly and suspicious), 
they claim carte blanche to spew 
pompous platitudes,
pronounce entire oeuvres as lacking elan
while all they create is endless ennui.

1/22/2018
For contest: Contest: Ten Words Ten Lines 2
Sponsor: Silent One

Animal Farm

Animal Farm

The youth of today; the ‘avant-garde’ of new lingo, lost words
‘Ennui’ of wisdom, with a blatant ‘cacophony’ of disrespect
‘Carte blanche’ entitlements pave a highway to absurdity
What once was ‘anomaly’, has become, a ‘bona fide’ threat

The ‘élan’ of our youth, self-absorbed with the screen
Their windows to the world encumbered only by a charge
The character constraints abbreviate a slang stream
As an Orwellian ‘déjà vu’, eighty-four is not far

But these ‘dilettantes” of tech, with an emoji style speak
Will never, understand; the ‘baroque’ of a poem, makes you weak


Contest: 10 Words, 10 Lines 2
Sponsor: Silent One
1/17/2018

Required Words:
-Anomaly
-Avant-garde
-Baroque
-Bona fide
-Cacophony
-Carte blanche
-Déjà vu
-Dilettante
-Élan
-Ennui

The Politician For Contest

The baroque politician walked with carte blanche
he definitely was a bona fide anomaly.

The crowd didn't like his avant-garde elan
as the low mummer turned to cacophony.

Politician calmly showed ennui
as though it was deja vu.

Crowd was not a bunch of dilettantes
becoming avant-garde took his shoes.

Then began ripping his baroque clothes
what happened next, nobody knows.

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