This is poetry--
Unknown and discussed
In no particular matters
Until death
Doth part
the Poet from his art
And ought to be--
But the saddest lovers are the living--
Who weave dastard tragedies
In goldpence and fame
And in hope, break Foundations
on laureled mounts,
Calling desperate to empty crypts
Which once housed their Muses
Praise and please to you, Polyhymn
Us hominids speak so bold
In our kindness to you!
While this is computed
And tooled to the ringing of gold
Glass
And transitions--
Mere sparks
In the ember of forge
That these mint implements
Are the forgery of that art
Consumes Hephaestus in his doubts
Of a father's true fires
And the alchem of his own
Clio, remember thy crowning!
The doubts of this mournful sphere
And the pain of our pasts
Are yours to cast within the stele
And praise be, toward your simple carvings of man!
Doting and careful could I be,
Lashing my wrists with decay
Stash my words by the reeds
I could hold the world up to keep
Our own love of the earth
In the same way
she should be earned
There is a certainty of that
Loveless act, the plotting of land
To place corpses upon the earth
For circus and grandeur
This is ultimately
The fate of you poets,
Cast as stones amongst the stream
Blackened and cold
And you will not know but the soul of you in deed
And your words will fall Deaf
Upon these fears of the freed
When they devour themselves in the temples
And massacre the streets
Exhume worn roads
Which bridged their father's feats
And when it is done
And the words come to rest
In the ruins and the spires
All but symbols and jests
No more, no more!
For it is all in their speech
It is all in good kind
And all left to me.
Poetry is art and art is dead, and it cannot be resumed unless understood in its aesthetic. For rivival comes but once and only upon death can the world understand the will of the living.