Ars Poetica - Shakespeare's Monkeys

Ars Poetica

...

Of words and wit I sing tonight
of how and what and where and why

O, sing with me,
O Please, I dare
you, nameless poet

Let is teach those that follow
what poetry is
not.

The lines between the lines
that steal prose from amidst the art
of hopelessness

from the rhyme
from the beat of k's where j's aren't
and the swish of s's as they slide

without g's without t's

The wretched hooves of the unloved adjectives
the unwanted adverbs that do too much.

O, sing with me,
the end of art:

the place the world is far too hot
and we blame mankind

yes, that is unpoetic there
a place we avoid for fear

of wilted flowers
of sweaty turbans
of dead polarbears sweeping
an endless arc to the icy ocean floor.

I will tell you what Poetry is
not

for that is safe.

The faithless, The voiceless:
Listen to them for the gutteral intonations of
songlessness;

Let them serenade you
with the holy truth of words
with the meter
with the symbolism
with the metaphors

O Sing with me!

Wicked inch, by wicked inch
the lines that build the ark
we parade onto in blank versed couplets!

Wretched day, by wretched day
the french-licked balls of sweet cliché
we stomp out proudly as if we were not the slaves
to that perverse master!

I will tell you what poetry is
not

O Sing with me
students of verse!

Writers of long lines
Writers of short lines
Authors of philosophy
Authors of science
Perpetrators of novels
and mystics of all sorts!

Sing with me! O Sing with me!
Let us intone the litany of our faith
lessness. The crimes we love
to commit to paper
and recite in public.

I will tell you what poetry is
not

tonight