A Something of a Spark
Belike this show imports the argument of the play.
Ophelia in Act 3 Scene 2
The Poets crave a Something they know not how to reach.
The Solstices and Metropoles drowse their Man to a Pharynx scrubbing speech.
The Place of Souls that they desire is craving but a Spark of Fire
Yet no spark can Poets find nor even dream with clear distinction
Nor find the Path out of the junction of their gnarled Knob.
People light their candles to the Deity
In single or collection. Is it the flame of Yah?
Poets paint a plea in pale colors with hardly hope expressed
That spark or soul or voice be woken by word beyond that merely guessed.
Their ardor lights their poems with their skill
—Suns to the stars of fledgling poets—
Their torment prods them down their paths
—Needles to the hay of fledgling poets—
They celebrate despair and pen their odes to Mess
—Nihilism to the sway of fledgling poets
Pundits pose their promises spread abroad in news.
Some believe while others sleep and the wary see a ruse.
Poets publish Beauty of the World seeking sly the soul so pregnable
Soul tight in tiny fight defeatable in awesome feeble fight against the Fiend
Who snatches Wooer of Wonder by eyes o’ergleamed
To lead by hooks and clamps to land uncleaned
The Poet caught by Beauty as it seemed.
Paupers pore their woes into the stolid streets
As politicos pace the trodden ways—the ways of ancient grace.
Poets spurn the Bible out of infinite concern—
Seeing brother killing brother—each the other would wish burn.
Prophetical dooms drop drear to minds embracing twinkle
While scholars school pages till crinkle fondles wrinkle.
“Lost in the scud before the ages”
Is the bell the poets tinkle.
Passion bubbles from the groin or from the sparkling soul
To light the fuse of teeming troubles spent resolvedly.
Poets note a zeal not compassed full circle,
As people curse the Inquisition and Crusades
While commemorating Wars of greed and pride,
And Poets note the daily world lumbering each day
With blindness to the source of its supply
As wicked root brings wicked fruit—
—Tree sprung thievish from holy ground.
Purses puff with dubious gains
As pockets lose their coinage.
The miracles of the Bible defy assay (mostly, anyway)
Leaving truth-seekers terrified of being led astray.
Archaeology paints a picture not always the Bible’s lecture.
Debates and dances beg belief in unlikely stories seen as thief.
Demand is made—‘historical story,’ while Framework argues—‘allegory.’
Postings boast the perfect lives
As loneliness creeps the homes.
Religion the Great oversteps honor assuming the freedom to rule
In the name of God with whatever burden it heaps upon the mule
Who lugs the load down the road to wherever the Lucky Duff goes
With promises turning caustic—whence the mules obtest,
Enough of woes!
How can a Book so Good be Bad? the Poets sough in throes.
Profits post their ups and downs
As markets vie for trust.
How to honor a god? souls grieve.
Progressive Poets thuswise scuttle for wordstrings bold and new,
Variant and colorful, lawless and reborn.
Experiences speak!—We fear confabulation.
Behemoths beguile!—We stagger and we shun
What might be good—We cup our maidenhood—
We fear! We writhe! We suspect
Our pathways have entered a maze. We embrace
A wandering Oracle so tender in smile—
Painted on face of Wood.
Pugilists ponder the worth of their punch
As friends confect with foe.
Curmudgeons batter airy hope—they will not worship a dream—
Not flight nor fancy nor “hie” nor “hup”—they will not serve a scheme.
A god who is god in words and deeds—
Who sparks and growls and sighs and pleads—
Appeals to heart and reason—at last a god be real.
Poets of the prosy kind, mustering with mortal might,
Speak not ahead, not divining, but lagging each event—
Gifted, maybe, to break notice what others then till time
Did trip beside unseeing—a message from the past unpent—
Stone archway breached—a stump long suffered—
A beast that was, was not, but is—slated for destruction—
A prophecy unpinned until the last, last days unbuffered—
Poetmen of unsought fame that dribbled as an unction.
Puzzles pose their sketchy sass
To life’s most pressing plights.
Look! An arch of silent stone
Shoulders word beyond that merely guessed—
Housing a feather quartered by the Bible’s Most Blessed—
The feather fallen from the wing of an angel—
A word—a picture—startling—matched
By action big—far too—for mortal man to do.
Pulpits honor the quartered feather
With a bit-too-hasty a look.
Remark! A twig striving from a stump, a solitary sprout,
A feather-twig befriending feather-stone, bespeaking a blessèd Birth
Of a Kingdom to be peopled on a wholly different turf.
The Kingdom conquers wary ones out of the world’s grime.
Sparks and Souls and Voices with bounding Hope choose Choices.
Persons perspicacious make their voices echo,
“You mustn’t overlook abiding habitude!”
Religion the Great grows numb—oh no!
It falls!
It crawls—enfeebled—exposed—
Disguises as worn by the Great Inspector Clouseau—
Have melted—flown—decomposed.
poetchilde puttering under pressure—
“What of that?” asks Dickinson.
Puddles palm the needed rains
That somehow leave the world dry.
Seekers query their innermost selves overriding pain and objection,
Brooking uneasiness while seeking the good, not letting integrity be overrun.
Fronted with Feathers unyielding they weigh in their wonder the options—
Poet of glory? Philosopher king? Libertine? Any rejections?
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