An Abhorrence of Poems

AN ABHORRENCE OF POEMS
by Peter Alistair

—finally!
I can declare with freedom and candor
utter with brutal honesty—
without reservation—what for me,
and perhaps for many others,
amounts to: a heresy
against the sacred gods and goddesses
of the written word
a despoilment
of the Muses pure
for whom legions of hearts
have flown to their lofty dwellings
in adoration
and there hope to stay forever
borne by immortal words.

Words!
I gather in my hands
all previous anxiety
like sand—palpable, elusive, coarse
—and in one stroke
cast it to dissipate
among the turbulent storms
of the habagat.

I do not single you out
Auden, Pound, and cummings
but nor do you escape reprimand
Frost, Stevens, and Moore.
all the strange and foreign terrains
from words you have weaved to baffle me:
all your “mammoth turtles climbing sulphur dreams,”
your trees whose leaves
I have never seen grow nor wilt.

Even you Bautista, Abad, and Garcia Villa
do not to me sound any more familiar
although I have walked among mango trees
where probably at the foot of one
Amper buried Miguel’s cat Simeona.

they tell me your line breaks are mastery of craft
of enjambment
when they seem to me nothing but arbitrary.
(human whim)
they tell me your words
life imitates
and the life your words imitate
live for all time.

Any day I’d take a plain, direct statement
over confusing lyric lines.
so boldly here I make my admission
take my stand
and over the rooftops sound
my barbaric yawp:

I have never understood poetry!