I think if I should be more aware
Of the peeling of a banana,
And all its slightly muffled, sticky sounds
I could call it music, and
Become, myself, a profound cataloger of all things noise.
For words are only structured noises,
We mold like clay. Well, why don’t we simply reign in
The noises that are already out there?
We’ll learn the nuances of a peeling banana,
Call them words: it is a banana saying, I’m peeling.
We’ll call them poems, call them song.
The sound of a cardboard coffee cup, for instance,
Gently returned to a desk after sipping
Multiplied by a classroom of
Caffeinated percussionists would be
Aptly called an avant-guard symphony! And I perhaps,
A modern-day maestro, conductor at the front of the room
Flapping my arms to the beat, up, down! Up-down! –Only pausing
To write down the tum-tum-tum, furiously capturing this rhythm
On paper for future readers to come.
But I fear, it is in this act of writing it down, that
The banana forgets how it sounds,
Or I forget to sound the banana, and
It all starts to become a sort of cacophonous din of
Slurping children, left by the wayside by the
Education system and adopted by Starbucks,
Who doesn’t serve this sort of poem.
So we must market this to the young folks;
It will be a movement of ultimate vintage-chic,
(Recalling the days of our wordless hairy brethren,
Who could only rely on grunts and noise)
To imagine Man without clothing is possible,
But Man without poetry is simply absurd.
This is an Ars Poetica, written 2010