A Poet's Curse

"last 3 lines my tip of cap to all my kindred souls"

Here's the cruelest joke, one last bitter pint

before careening off the rails:

bedlam isn't quite as cracked

as the crack-less conceive--

Villon, Wyatt, Marlowe

were nursed at a mother's tit
well before they'd spilled a rhyme,

Sade, Gorgeous George, Swinburne

spewed debauchery into form
more romantic than any

Baudelaire, Fyodor, Verlaine

art for loving spurned
their madness out of time

Ezra, Robert, Richard and Annie...

The poet's curse
passing from generation to

generation like some recessive gene

W.T C F L J R S M Ke...

so many dogs

barking at the moon

Ken e Bujold

©2022

Reviews

[Kaye]

This is one clever write here, love the message sent.
Nicely written with your talent woven through out.
But a dog is going to bark as well as howl...
Love this write

[Ken e Bujold]

thanks for review Kaye.

[Kaye]

not a problem

[Gee]

Love " so many dogs barking at the moon"
The small are hours when sleep needed but the mind refusing wanting to write instead.
Hope you are well

[Ken e Bujold]

thanks for review Gee

[John the Baptist]

Let's not forget the incomparable EAP.

[duff]

I like the mystery and how its woven throughout. Spitting knowledge. Nice work.

[Ken e Bujold]

thanks for review, glad you enjoyed the read Duff

[Fabian G. Franklin]

I feel more like howling myself. Maybe I've too much Ginsberg in my veins. Not really. But I'd venture there's quite a bit of D.H. Lawrence in there. And talk about your debauchery, Lawrence had a great amount of that in his vein as did John Donne (even if he was the Dean of St. Paul's) My favorite maniac poet was Jonathan Swift who couldn't get past the fact that his Celia s***s. If you've never read The Lady's Dressing Room by Swift it's quite insane. Of course Swift himself went completely mad in the end trying to claw out his inflamed eye. The Dean of St. Patrick's was great friends with Alexander Pope who died just a year previous to him and later the Dean was immortalized in verse by W.B. Yeats. "No great mind ever existed without a touch of madness." Aristotle

[Ken e Bujold]

all true Fabian. Swift's A Modest Proposal is my absolute favorite piece of satire. DH was a man for slinking among the sweet-smelling effluvium of mortality. But, strictly speaking the mugs gallery I list, until the final initials, are from the rogue's gallery of criminals and institutionalized lunatics of the poet's society

[Fabian G. Franklin]

At least we remain in the "living" and not in the Dead Poet's Society. I'd like to retain my membership here a bit longer. (laughing) I have things to do. Someone recently complained to me about the ignominies of growing old to which I could only reply that it was at least preferable to the alternative. I've lost my hair, my teeth, my dignity and the better part of my mind but I'm still holding my own against the grim reaper. Let's continue to fight the good fight while we may, eh?

[Ken e Bujold]

I have no quibble with that

[JD Major]

...an uncomfortable read. I liked it, Bravo!
You've captured The Curse,
complete with all the Precursors!
JD

[Ken e Bujold]

glad you enjoyed JD. Due to time restraints I couldn't name them all

[W. Barrett Munn]

I am curious, do we all see the same moon?

Winston

[Ken e Bujold]

I think it's the same moon, but like dogs we are, no one's quite articulate enough to give a definitive definition of what that is

[W. Barrett Munn]

Yes, the same moon and sky, the same world and universe, but the truly great see in unique ways: T.E. Hulme, for example, writing of the homeless in London on a frigid night describes the sky as a "star-eaten blanket" to be pulled down for warmth, while T.S. Eliot wrote that "winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow".

Winston (trying on different glasses.)