Poems About Poets Vi
Poems about Poets VI
beMused
Michael R Burch
Perhaps at three
you'll come to tea,
to have a cuppa here?
You'll just stop in
to sip dry gin?
I only have a beer.
To name the greats:
Pope, Dryden, mates?
The whole world knows their names.
Discuss the songs
of Emerson?
But these are children's games.
Give me rhythms
wild as Dylan’s!
Give me Bobbie Burns!
Give me Psalms
or Hopkins’ poems,
Hart Crane’s, if he returns!
Or Langston railing!
Blake assailing!
Few others I desire.
Or go away,
yes, leave today:
your tepid poets tire.
Too Late
Michael R Burch
I learned too late that poetry has rules,
although they may be rules for greater fools.
In any case, by dodging rules and schools,
I avoided useless duels.
I learned too late that sentiment is bad—
that Blake and Keats and Plath had all been had.
In any case, by following my heart,
I learned to walk apart.
I learned too late that “telling” is a crime.
Did Shakespeare know? Is Milton doing time?
In any case, by telling, I admit:
I think such rules are s**t.
Discrimination
Michael R Burch
The meter I had sought to find, perplexed,
was ripped from books of “verse” that read like prose.
I found it in sheet music, in long rows
of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks
of long-forgotten volumes undisturbed
half-centuries by archivists, unscanned.
I read their fading numbers, frowned, perturbed—
why should such tattered artistry be banned?
I heard the sleigh bells’ jingles, vampish ads,
the supermodels’ babble, Seuss’s books
extolled in major movies, blurbs for abs ...
A few poor thinnish journals crammed in nooks
are all I’ve found this late to sell to those
who’d classify free verse “expensive prose.”
Brother Iran
Michael R Burch
Brother Iran, I feel your pain.
I feel it as when the Turk fled Spain.
As the Jew fled, too, that constricting span,
I feel your pain, Brother Iran.
Brother Iran, I know you are noble!
I too fear Hiroshima and Chernobyl.
But though my heart shudders, I have a plan,
and I know you are noble, Brother Iran.
Brother Iran, I salute your Poets!
your Mathematicians!, all your great Wits!
O, come join the earth's great Caravan.
We'll include your Poets, Brother Iran.
Brother Iran, I love your Verse!
Come take my hand now, let's rehearse
the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
For I love your Verse, Brother Iran.
Bother Iran, civilization's Flower!
How high flew your spires in man's early hours!
Let us build them yet higher, for that's my plan,
civilization's first flower, Brother Iran.
Copyright ©
Michael Burch
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