GRANNY SMITH OR COSMIC CRISP

I have always resented formal rules in

literary circles, the laws of sonnetry, haiku,

or villanelle; tripwires set across the path

and flow of meaning. Clever, they are, those

Pharisees and Sadducees with long noses

and soulless pince nez arrogance, full of

fancy names for complicated nonsense.

I’ve read your poem and ask myself, “what

do I see now, I did not see before?” Sometimes,

all I need to get my juices flowing is a spritely

turn of phrase I wish I’d done myself, “the blue

of dark” is one I stole, and maybe will again

when the need arises.

There are poems whose very words are so

electric you need someone to shout “CLEAR!”

before you read them... A thing that never

happens in the elite, right angled world of

Anapestic Pentameter’s greeting cards...

Stop!

Academia with the hard hearts of squeezed

sphincters always at home with arcanity.

I imagine they prefer plastic flowers for their

table because they always stay the same while

real ones require water and food.

Real words need be scattered and sown like wheat

in a paper garden for a harvest of something

new, because the doctrine of conformity is

a bitter apple and the original sin in any garden

of the arts.

Reviews

[GlendasNotAlwaysaBadwit..]

The "tripwire" attracted me! lol
You write so flowingly even when the write becomes deep and complicated (to me)
You never criticize but critique is something you are excellent at.
Even your discernment is poetry.
sphincters got me laughing