This is a poem lamenting our world's lack of poets |
She crafts her stanzas with Moon dust, fire, and liquid gold. She wanders, prying stars from the Smooth black night, and soars. Her life is snapshots of verse, words Locked into image, images folded Away into memory, like the time she Turned up the music inside the car and Felt the tremors caused by the Authoritative bass boost. She resides In solitary moments of quick darkness, Extinguishing and rekindling light. A goddess, she brings forth a Heavy emerald, a green jewel. The pureness of the jungle radiates With colour. Life buzzes, and Rainy leaves sway in uneven sheets. In her Streaked orange skies torn by Sunlight, the clouds always burn thickly. Pelts of rich green moss layer her Solid rock of imagination, her brightness Accentuated by the flitter of yellow birds, by Silver water glowing with sunlight, By the padding of a wolf’s paws across Soft grass. The musical wind whispers. He sits, still as a lotus flower Poised in reverence, his eyes absorbing The transfiguration of language becoming Reality. The holiness of her syllables Blinds him, leaving him transfixed Until his eyes see nothing but white. He is a poor man, armed Only with the inadequate ardency Of matchstick prose, still sharp With the acrid odour of phosphor. She contemplates music, drinking in The hard drum beat and letting Guitar riffs snake and reverberate Inside her head. It’s like a drug, She thinks. And she’s inside the bubble. Before she knows it, she’s singing, too. Then screaming with cathartic intensity, Oblivious to the complaining neighbours, To the distortion in her voice, to her Throat’s harsh, broken chords. He visits the emerald jungle often, Tasting the dewy lushness of the plants, The smile of the Lily, the sweetness Of good soil and decomposing leaves. His heart is mangled by fierce desire. He wants to be the kind of artist who changes The world with a single brushstroke. That night, he wanders around the Streets, looking for inspiration. The cool moon offers no consolation, While the stars glow with furtive heat. He sees beauty out of the corner of his eye: Rubies in a cruising sports car’s Tail lights, watching as streetlamp Reflections glide elegantly across the Unmarred vehicle’s shell, perfectly curved. A song Of power hums from deep inside the engine, Determined and full throated with fuel. Over there, the traffic lights. How diligent, How eternal! A triple rotation of colours, Vulgar and manmade, yet more languid Than a river, timeless as a repetition of waves. He describes the scene. He narrates. He tells. His phrases are nuts and bolts, bits of Useless scrap metal and assorted rubbish Thrown together. It is the rawest kind of beauty, But he does not put it down on paper. The potential inside him aches for freedom. The first lines are forming, deep, Deep in his soul. But his hand never Reaches for a pen, and his eyes never Search for his notebook. Instead, he Thinks of failure, thought of how His words can never catch up with What he feels…and stops. Another burst of self consciousness, A desperate plea from his pride, and It was all gone. He stowed them away, those Precious, first lines, those verses that Had crossed the boundary Into a region of unexplored beauty. If only he had understood that The world began in fire. If He had struck those frigid matches Of his, he could watch his very own words Burn golden, running hot and spilling Across the pages like molten silver. He did not know how she did it. Neither did she know how he couldn’t do it. If she had known, his dry imagination Would have turned into a lake of Glistening ideas, fiery with life. Perhaps the world would have been Different, history rewritten by A different victor. All he has left to rely on Is the friendliness, and the solid Reliability of time. Perhaps a Day will come, when glorious Bravery fills his heart and he Unsheathes his sword, the Sharp tipped fountain pen, To resurrect himself. Soon? Or late? Or never? |