We are all human beings
We all have our own lives
And different ways we live them
But each one of us is a writer
And this poem is for all of you

All of you who have virtues and use them in your writing
Those who use flashbacks and revisit mental photo albums

Beginning the story from the middle for that’s usually where you mind is at
Looking back then looking forward
Studying the past so you can be ready for what is to come

Recording catastrophes with a number two pencil

Tales and blurbs of tragedy
Caused by love or the lack there of

Rewards and punishment
Self-reliance and self-fulfillment

We are mere narrators
Humble, maybe unreliable
Equipped with numerous devices
Ironic Paradoxes
Red herrings
Fortuitous plot twists
Metaphors
Allegoric hyperboles
Analogies
Oxymorons and onomatopoeias

We sling Chekhov’s gun like bandits of literacy

We’re visionary revolutionaries
Revolution of the mind, body and soul

Changing ourselves and examining who and what we are
To become what we are destined to be
The best

Rejecting convention
Building our own paths
That lead to cliffhangers

Romantic lust
Comedic affairs
Dark massacres
Spiritual healing

Religious speculation
And the questioning of the way we, the people are being governed

We use the tools we are giving to sculpt new art that the world can stand in awe of

Personification
Symbolic imagery

Practicing pastiche with respect
Dionysian imitatio

Surreal reality
Defying mortality

Reiteration and retort

Using nature to express emotion and thought

Doubts and fear

Opposites
Morals and ethics

Satisfying curiosity

Parodying what we see
Embellishing just a little

We us word play to dive deep into the topic of conscious, subconscious and unconscious thought

Using satire to poke fun at the human condition,  its senses and perception of the universe to get readers thinking

Expressing our anger, our boundless joys
Desiring unknown pleasures

Seeing past the fallacies put before us

We write with great candor about war, personal conflicts, and self-abuse

With hinting undertones to give these ideas a second thought

We write of the supernatural, metaphysical mysteries
Outlandish, obscure mind boggling theories

As the clock ticks too fast for us and the characters we’ve created

Demolishing the fourth wall with a sledge hammer of defamiliarization

Epiphanies in a parking lot
Speaking in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd person

Using fun things like anagrams and palindromes
Candy for the lovers of such things

Spontaneity is an understatement
Nonsense is an insulting overstatement
Absurdity seems to fit just right

We are chameleons
We can write in various forms
Streams of gratifying consciousness
Brilliant prose
Beautiful poetry

And chose to use or merely acknowledge the ways to achieve these forms
Rhetoric, rhythm  and rhyme
Meter and mora
Conceit and consonance
Assonance
Intonation
Working with phonaesthetics  

And accenting aesthetics

A poem can or could not be organized as such
If we want to get technical about it

We have a poem
With a number of verses
And in those verses
Are lines
And those lines might rhyme
And have a meter or rhythm
Stressed or unstressed syllables

In contrast to that we may write
Without all of that and use emotion
Feeling and structure our work with what we feel is the best way
Line breaks
Pauses and puns
Silly similes
Ambiguous antonyms  
Intonation, linguistics
Fight against the fascists of grammar and conservative correctness

So, in the end we are writers of a rainbow kaleidoscope forms, devices, ways and ideas

But we alone are the ones who make the world think
Make it move
Revolt
Renew
Learn
Look back
Remember
Cry
Smile
Forget
Ease

Write my friends write until your mind explodes and your fingers bleed

Read, read and become inspired
Even if what you’re reading is bad cheese

Forget getting published it’s the writing that matters
Disregard the off-putting, critical chatter

And if you think no one reads
Than be the seed and sprout a tree of astounding artistry
And let’s begin a new movement composed of ideals that will hold true forever
I might be preaching to the choir but it must be said that poetry; literature isn’t dead

Once I seen a human ruin
In a elevator-well.
And his members was bestrewin'
All the place where he had fell.
And I says, apostrophisin'
That uncommon woful wreck:
"Your position's so surprisin'
That I tremble for your neck!"
Then that ruin, smilin' sadly
And impressive, up and spoke:
"Well, I wouldn't tremble badly,
For it's been a fortnight broke."

Then, for further comprehension
Of his attitude, he begs
I will focus my attention
On his various arms and legs--

How they all are contumacious;
Where they each, respective, lie;
How one trotter proves ungracious,
T' other one an alibi.

These particulars is mentioned
For to show his dismal state,
Which I wasn't first intentioned
To specifical relate.

None is worser to be dreaded
That I ever have heard tell
Than the gent's who there was spreaded
In that elevator-well.

Now this tale is allegoric--
It is figurative all,
For the well is metaphoric
And the feller didn't fall.

I opine it isn't moral
For a writer-man to cheat,
And despise to wear a laurel
As was gotten by deceit.

For 'tis Politics intended
By the elevator, mind,
It will boost a person splendid
If his talent is the kind.

Col. Bryan had the talent
(For the busted man is him)
And it shot him up right gallant
Till his head began to swim.

Then the rope it broke above him
And he painful came to earth
Where there's nobody to love him
For his detrimented worth.

Though he's living' none would know him,
Or at leastwise not as such.
Moral of this woful poem:
Frequent oil your safety-clutch.Porfer Poog.

Past and future mirror one another.
Fixed at their crossing point
Is an infinite and uncombustible present:
Isness as an endless ocean.

An ocean made of words
Fluid words endlessly mobile, where
Anything can be described
Anything foretold.

In deep and shallow utterances
Live all the metaphors
In cycling currents
All allusions ebb and flow.

Some tales are down for deep remembering
Some swim fertile yet unborn,
All the while the ocean shares her stories
Allegoric and relentless as they wash ashore.


MChallis © 2015

Sounds like you
Sounds like your subconscious
Peekaboo
Masochistic
Melodic
Preternatural, true.
Your form is a construct
Consistently mistook
For a word that was given by another
Your mind is cloven
Intrinsically woven
For a thought that was a lover.

Sounds like you
Sounds like an allegoric
Stain glass shoe
Chopped-up slivers of ego goo
Like a small tin cymbal
Ring of truth.

You can't catch me 22 
I'm miles dead ahead of you  
Runnin' circles round' you squares
With lion shares and grizzly bares
Livin' on a cobra's prayer
With taboo turpitude'n tongue
Conundrums that I'm summon'un
The meta-Orpheus has come
Since 21, the chosen one
I'm neo-hippy rebel ****
So ante-uppers, get you some
Eleven seven slurpee sun
Super-soaking supernovas
With a matrix water gun
From vats of hydrochloric
Spillin' Joker on the masses
Turnin' Gotham allegoric
Into clown prince rhymes of passion
Of a blood of Christ fanatic
Jimmy Jones'n as I'm cashin'
In the semi-theocratic
Weapon cache'n checks imbalanced
Chemically unstable attic  
Bat **** crazy poison gases
Spewin' power-trippin' fascist
Cataclysmic autocratic
Devolution clash of classes
Resolution's prehistoric
Meteoric democratic  
So I'm risin' from the ashes
From dismayin' to conveyin'
How I'm goin' super Saiyan
When the treasure hordes of Mordor lords
Corrupt the men of Numenor
For Bard the Bowman heroes
Are the roles that I am playin'
In shadows of the Arkenstone
When I go dragon slayin'

Hail to thee, Poets!
For you, like every man, woman, and child who
Has ever smiled or frowned truly from the heart
Have recognized the melody of the familiar song
Which plays in the depths of the mind,
Bringing sweet harmony to human thoughts.

Hail to thee, Poets!
For you have not recognized the song in vain
But, the verse having danced onto the conscious stage,
You met her and matched her step for step,
You drew her close and embraced her
You held her hand and allowed her to kiss you.

Hail to thee, Poets!
For though the song could not be pronounced by human lips
And the love could not be captured in our poor language
You danced the steps because the song was worthy
And with ink you conjured shadows and signs
Which point past the veil to the beauty you have tasted.

Hail to thee, Poets!
For you have exalted the poverty of men’s words,
Elevating them with sweeping style
Giving them new and brighter and deeper hues
Making them swirl and leap and caper gaily
With skillful rhyme and rhythm and tone.

Hail to thee, Poets!
For when structure ceased to liberate
And metre began to confine
And your newlywed wordplay could speak for itself
You cast off fetters and let fly the pen
And your verse became a waterfall of rushing lyrics free.

Hail to thee, Poets!
For you listened intently to the chanting of nature
And contemplated reverently the stone and cloud alike,
With awe you made both fern and frog your brother
And meditated childlike upon the horizon’s lap:
With these songs you painted for us Creation herself.

Hail to thee, Poets!
For you have apprehended a parabolic knowledge,
And grasped a new understanding in allegoric light,
You have made yourselves the masters of the wisdom of riddles,
And laboriously studied a secret language spoken in words divine,
An enigmatic tongue in which no man is fully fluent.

Hail to thee, Poets!
For when you had exhausted all that is outside,
You turned inwards, examining your secret soul,
You sung to us hopes and fantasies and mind’s murmurs,
Giving personality to thoughts once hidden,
You introduced us to the muses who dwell within your heart.

Hail to thee, Poets!
For you did not blush to share your sufferings
But bared to God’s light your inmost wounds,
Wrenching the darkness from your core,
And with the cord yet uncut (for we haven’t yet discovered how to sever it)
You wrote with the viscous ink of man’s sins and pains.

Hail to thee, Poets!
And above all, for this:
You gave us love, charity, amity- O Love!
Love, over all and pervading everything;
Love, misunderstood and no less exhilarating,
Love, good measure, pressed down, and flowing over!

Hail to thee, Poets,
And give me your blessing!
I am not counted amongst your number
But I am your student, your brother, your lover,
Let me sit at your knees and drink of your water,
You honor me with your friendship, I repay it gladly in full.

Dipped into the piping beverage
Smooth like melted ore
Giving extra oomph 'n leverage
To inner Manticore

Rousing sleeping warrior
Ad'lescent sophomore
Breaking down the barrier
Twixt pretext and inner core

Dripping ebony brown
Waxing allegoric
Soft on tongue as down
Whispers sound euphoric

Soothing edges abrasive
From land of talisman
Transforms secular to sacred
This food of gods and man