Hit me up yeah

What's it take
These days

To write a poem

That makes the world go mad
That brings the crowds to their feet
That spreads like wildfire
Through a dry winter forest

Is it those excessively long words?
The ostentatiously loquacious
Platitudinous ramblings
Of an insecure mind aspiring
To authentic intellect?

Is it perhaps...
     the "creativity"
               of      varied      spacing
  or...    could it be..... the lack
                              of capitalization
               the loathsome little letters
               screaming out
                         hey, look at us!
         ... or maybe it's
               the punctuation marks,
     littered, haphazardly
          through the text
                    (whether used correctly)
               or, theyre not?!
     despite worrds mispeled
          and a grammar might is broken
   can these gimmicks increase interest
        though miswritten or misspoken?

Is the trick alliteration
Whose bite brightly bids us
To center on the snappy sounds?
Although all along
     unvoiced underneath
Ideas idle in the isles
   (or perhaps the aisles)
Of the mind
To meld and craft and bind
Our thorough thoughts
And worthy words
Into lines
Which
Heard by herds
Raise the
                  Praise for which we
                  Privately, desperately
                  Pray

Maybe it's a magical mix
Of splendid in-your-head rhythm
Marvelous meter that perfectly clicks
Flowing smoothly without schism

Well-spaced stanzas
Well-used time
Well-crafted phrases
Well-thought-out rhymes

Well, maybe not...
     those gems are often ignored
     cast-aside, unread, even abhorred

Why?

Because the modern world
doesn't need your rules
your restrictions
your regulations
your misguided boundaries
your oppression
your antiquated ideas
   of "the right way"
   to write
   to speak
   to act
   to live
   to (fill in the blank)

No, what the modern world needs
is
Negation!
Contradiction!
Resistance!
Revolt!

And poetry whose words
Say the same thing
Repeat the same meaning
Echo the same lyrics
Rephrase the same thoughts
But in an ever-so-slightly
Different
Varied
Altered
Adjusted
Changed up way

Line
After line
Of synonyms
          over
               and
                    over
                         and
                              over
                                   again

-----

What's it take
These days

To not give in
To narcissism's spiral?

But more importantly:
What's it take

To make my poem go viral?

It was blue and I knew it could not be a sea
and the waves that I saw were not people
waving to me
I
drowned in it anyway.

Seeing things in colour when the colour's not there
and it's all in the mind which is slightly unfair,
but definitely blue

and no plastic bags.

If I could swim on a whim or
a wing and a prayer and the
colour imagined
was the colour of your hair
and the waves were just curls
when you crinkle your eyes,
I'd be happier.

Making sense of some nonsense
and much of Nonsuch
touching all of the bases
is
the one-legged man
and his crutch,

they say,
'he's as mad as a hatter'
aye
and that a' can believe.

So
it's bedtime and book to
be read time,
sleepy head's having some
me time,
some time later I'll sleep.

Seems the kettle has to fall before anyone realizes it was singing.
Guess we clip the bird's wings before we know it once could fly.
No one acknowledges someone was tortured until they've died.


When someone hurts in the world, they're not allowed to cry.