Saturday, December 31, 2016

Kit Kelen - #366 - 366 - or not going to happen


366
366
or
not going to happen
(indulge this moment's fantasy of self-reflection)

I want them to point and say
there he is!
there's the one who wrote a poem a day
for the whole of the year

and some of them were alright too
I'd know him anywhere
just by style
by voice –
unmistakable!

and it was better than the news
you'd want to hear from him every day
and he was … reliable!

like a paper thrown at your letterbox
but landed right way up
and didn't need too much unwrapping

and he wasn't the only one
there was a whole bunch of them
all at the every day stuff that mattered

what an effort they made!
and they did it together
they were in conversation
they were a community
hard at it
making the heart-and-head stuff –
poetry!

magic – all out of thin air?
not really
more like
they all just kept each other going
like a conversation

really it's unprecedented
who's ever done that before?

were there poetry holidays in there?
any poetry-off days?

well sometimes it
might have got prosaic
and much that was meant
just had to be pictured
but poetry was the spirit of the thing
and the spirit was always there

I want them to say
the punters I mean
I want them to say
o pioneers!
when the world was turning to shit before our eyes
they did this democratic thing
bore witness to each other's truths
and made it part of their day
the work of witness
a kind of standing up to say
I'm in nobody's bottom drawer
I'm present to this world
and sing

it made the day
made mine, made yours
that's what I'd like to hear them say

they were the ones who kept the faith

their politics was poetry
heroes of the deep lost verbiage
heroes picturing

should be borne shoulder high
among adulant crowds
to wear the laurel jubilant
of getting to this day

lyrics licked
and tune enduring
heroes of poetry's community

anthem, jig and flag unfurl
?

but all are victims of a closing cadence
denouement comes to the best

I have this sneaking suspicion
recognition will not

instead
it's more like
look at this sorry collection
they have the poetry disease
him and his sad friends
they have to do it every day

it's like a running nose
this draft of a poem every day
and you're out of the allergy medicine

follow the tissue-strewn path
to the temple, is it
or the ward for hopeless cases?

it was always hard to tell those apart

but what is there to worship at last?

I wonder if there's a way we could help them?

maybe be the best thing we can do
is to politely turn away?
or even if we read
we can pretend that we ignore them

yes they are beyond our help

pretend it hasn't mattered
pretend no difference was made

comrades
let me just say this
bugger the rest of the world
it's off to buggery all by itself
requires none of our help to get there

but
this year was ours too

I wrote for you
you wrote for me
isn't that what counts?












                                                        Shisendo - temple of the poetry immortals

2 comments:

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.