Not Waving But Drowning

Not Waving But Drowning

Write short, sharp sentences,
you said. They can’t
concentrate
for longer. I wondered
who “they” were and, presuming
you meant the readers,
continued to ponder
the wisdom of disdaining
those who bought your book,
and, by deduction therefore,
the ones who pay for
your meal ticket,
and that’s not to mention
punctuation,
a thing expressly designed
to make the reading of
ultra long sentences
a breeze; added to which,
the thought occurs
that, if “they” bought your book
and it’s filled with short sentences,
they will never learn
the glory and majesty of
the cleverly packaged sentence
proceeding down the page
and containing all
you could wish to know, yet
remaining within the grasp
of anyone who knows
that a comma means pause,
perhaps not as long
as a period but sufficient,
even so, to take another breath,
this obsession with brevity
only serving to confirm
your original premise,
imprisoning therefore
the aforesaid “they”
in their (as you see it)
limitations, which seems to me
to lack ambition to better
our fellow beings,
writing and reading being
the cornerstones
of education and,
having made my point,
in a sentence of, at present,
one hundred and ninety
words (and a few more to come),
let me ask you this question:
have you understood
what I’m saying?
Of course you have,
although I’ll not risk
enquiring as to the level
of your boredom.
Sometimes it’s best to know
when to stop.


Line Count: 58
Free Verse
Not for a contest - just a passing thought.