Sunday, June 03, 2007

A Poem's Lament

I fail to see what there is
In a few lines scribbled in haste.
Why write with rhythm amiss -
A soul, that urgency effaced?

Pray, what beauty do they bring
The wordiness out here, here and here?
For whom does your poem sing,
If not for the refined patient ear?

Treat not your earnest reader thus.
She who shuts off the world to read not in vain.
A moment's tryst for your words' buss
A lifetime's affair in a legerdemain.

Give her your all, and soul and love
While you remain, to your self, so truthful.
Though you write: "Heaven of free doves"
She trembles at a promise so beautiful.

Waft your poem in the air of fine rhyme,
Marry it to the nightingale's tune.
Weave in it a dear story not of time,
A dream with plenty magic-dust strewn.

With fingers of words do carefully reach forth
And pluck the naked breast's yearning strings.
For in artful honest spake the poet's oath:
To pledge, renege and awe in verse-springs.

What is the point in such cerebral stunts -
The poem is for the humming heart?
Waste not time for academic regents -
"Scholar" rhymes not with "heart", as does "Art".

What better gift can art ever receive -
Than a soulful, lyrical threnody?
Please pause and let the Muse achieve
Her innocent way through you to she.

So here I'll rest my plaintive lament
And ask of poets and those reaching above,
That words are not to be spat or misspent
But woven to breeze a Heaven of free doves.

Singing a poem...

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:10 PM

    On steroids, eh? Good.

    # At last. A beautiful poem. The rhythm, the rhyme and the profound subject of the poem all intact.

    # "...a dear story not of time","....and ask of poets and those reaching above" capture the eternal in the ephemeral. Quite lovely.

    # And the image is simply perfect for the poem and its Heaven of free doves. I like the smooth alignment of the curve of the wings and of the flower petals in this image. Good piece of artistic creation per se independent of the poem.

    # Come, come Eroteme! - not fair at all. Be kinder to yourself - How can you include your pure and loving "Charade" along with the dreadful ones from Agni and Paris Review? Yours has soulful vibrations while the others just throw me into a tizzy with their triteness of expression and all these (god-save-us from) not-at-all- poetry poems!

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  2. lol - why am i not on your list of poetic rubbish - with my typos and non rythm and crap spelling :D

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  3. Dear P,
    I would love to stay perennially on steroids, but I am told the side-effects are not entirely desirable... ;-)
    Glad you liked this one. Glad you liked some of the phrases (it is such a pleasure to effect a dramatic change in your approval across two blog posts). I am glad my previous poem could redeem itself in the company of published poems!! ;-)

    Dear R,
    And incur your hatred even more? ;-) No way...

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  4. it flows on...

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  5. The incapable have nothing but free verse. Bad "poetry" is but a balm to the unworthy and the unworthy too have a right and a need to express. We are sinners if we ever call it poetry in the enchanting light of such beauty as above.

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  6. Dear S,
    :-)

    Dear B,
    Not sure whether I would call anyone unworthy - probably lazy! Glad you found this poem so. I might not go to the extent of calling it enchanting, but undoubtedly it has a message! :-)

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  7. Erotreme,
    I don't think it's laziness. It may be in some cases - perhaps the one's you allude to. In most (like mine) it is because, no matter how much the effort is, there is not enough sense/talent/whatever-you-call-it to make the writing lyrical.

    Opinions do vary. Mine is that the one above is beyond beautiful. :-)

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  8. Dear B,
    :-) I rest my case, though if you are interested, I might still give you points as to why this is not one of the finest! ;-)

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