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Maestro

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.

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Written by
j-penn-abercrombie
Published
Jun 30, 2010
Lines·Words
33·261
Notes

This is an Ars Poetica, written 2010

Permission

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