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The Keepers of the Craft |
There was once a time
And a special time
When simple words of beauty
Were quite enough.
When phrases that wound
Around rose trees and amber
Stood alone in their simplicity
Speaking beauty to the soul.
Just for fun
One day in September
The poets sought to see
If they could tell their same sweet music
By rules of one two and three
And so they tried
They formed rules for length
And meter and rhyme
And sought to make their words to fit.
Such beauty came forth
As was never read before
And stunned the readers
Into laughter and tears.
Such rules of writing
Changed the landscape of literature
Forcing form upon prose
Changing the landscape of literature.
But in each generation
Some simple folks
Held onto the old ways
And kept them apart and sacred
And that is where the division began
Each seemed to have their own way
Free verse, pantoum, cinquine or sonnet
Everyone told the story by their own structure
Which was good enough by itself
But soon began the battle
My form is better than your form
My form is better than no form
My poetry is the only poetry there is
What you do is not poetry
Because it is not on a piece of paper
Your poetry is not poetry
Because it is not memorized
And those who would listen stopped
They could not hear the poetry
For the din of the arguments
And they left the room
And those who would write stopped
They could not hear their own words
Only the hateful criticisms
Of those who wrote the only true poetry.
And soon the coffee houses were quiet
And no one cared when the smoothie machine
Sang it’s sweet song into the night
For Poetry, had indeed, left the house.
copyright 2004
Jack Allen
Shafer |
