Frayed Feisty Threads - Book IV

A Poet's Lament 11/21/2015

Poems by Longfellow, Kilmer and Poe
Were crafted with a different flow.
All speaking of the everyday
But ne'er in dark and graphic way.

Poems were different once -I remember
Reading Kilmer, Browning and Frost in December.
Whitman left us Leaves of Grass;
Maya Angelou crafted prose with class.

The baseless rhymes writ today
Talk of death and dying - an explicit display
Of words that cause Great Poets to shudder,
Creating charred verse-no Wordsmith doth utter.

I long to read old poets classic, feel their rhyme and rhythm.
To see glimmers of their styles now in prose with new life given
To thoughts and feelings through words displayed in
Well-planned dreams amid newly crafted ways.

Longfellow's "patter of little feet" and "voices on the stair"
His phrases still hold true today - just in a different lair!
How sweet to hear Poe's Raven quote "Nevermore!" again;
The sword still shouts "Excelsior!" to whom its sheath is g'ven.

To hear words that rouse spirit and encourage discussion too
Could it mean this? Was it that? Who was Barrett-Browning trying to woo?
For poems should leave us wondering if what we understand
Resides within the poet's heart or within the heart of man.

"I think that I shall never see" Kilmer quoted again;
His "poem as lovely as a tree" tumbling to an end.
For once his tree its branches spread...
(His words still resonate in heart and head).

My sermon here is ending for my words are wretched too
I cannot write the classics, though I long to write anew.
Of fresh and vibrant life that springs while hope eternal grows,
Alas! Our world is fighting for a different type of prose.


11/21/2015
tuc

Nomination Information ▼

This poem was nominated for "Invalid Item"  for Best Medium Length Poem, Structured, for 2015. Selected as category finalist for 2015

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Edited ▼

09/06/2016 to correct pronoun for Joyce Kilmer

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