“...Uncertain Circumstances”

                  In re John Cornford, 1936

One of the many bad things about being
A fervent Communist organizer is
That pretty soon some other Communists
Organize you

Cataclysm of cataclysms,
The End of ends,
The death of Death,
To hell with Hell.

The Devil and his minions,
The Dead outside the Fold,
Subsumed in Fire,
Truth consuming liars.

Outside the flames,
The Great Relief,
Absence of Pain,
Forgotten Grief.

Cosmos free of all that's fey,
Night consumed by glorious day.

An American weather boy reports the storm
And all its tracks upon a glowing map
A hurricane by shape and scale and form
Roaring northeast through a low-pressure gap

There is nothing beyond holy New York City
Some unexplored land masses, it may be
Lost in the Atlantic (which is blue and pretty)
Where the hurricane will be harmless, you see

With a flip of his hand, they are dismissed:
Nova Scotia and Newfoundland do not exist

She gazed out long and far,
Past half closed curtains  
And dozing, docile cars.
Witness to a world double glazed
Dampened by a passing rain.
Sound drowned still by fragile,
Stained glass pane.

Skies lay grey, like every other day,
Shrubs shrug and trees sadly sway.
She feels for the trees,
(And to an extent the shrub)
They're not so different from you or I.
We all plant roots, grow, love?

Thoughts disturbed by a startled dove,
Flew the coup, done, had enough,
Rose as Icarus toward the sun.
Basked in light of new found freedom.

Never heard the hunters gun.

Take only what you can carry,
Only what you need.
Just enough to feed and water
You and a faithful steed.

Forget the path well trodden,
That will not help you on your way.
Instead forge your own trail
For others to follow one day.

Never shy from an opportunity
Throw yourself through every door.
For this life is an adventure,
Now go,
Explore!

What have we become?
When poetry resides
In two lines, then we're done?
Have you nothing more to say?

Pretending to be profound,
Applause all around.
Nothing more than a passing thought.
If thought was required at all?

You call this poetry?
I don't.

Perhaps I'm just old fashioned,
Believing in meaning
And the power of words.
Yet on occasion i have heard
Voices of angels and demons
Faint but undeterred,
Laughing in the face of mediocrity.

A virus fed by popularity,
So what have we learned?
From your instagram friendly
Twitter assembly,
We realise you have said
Absolutely nothing at all.

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?