a poem for people who don't really like poetry.

Each

time

you see graffiti on the side of a closed Radio Shack,

and it's as if Australopithecus is trying to decode the alphabet,

"i before e, except after c"

or how the "Lilacs last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"

is different than today

yet a garden of refuge for

tomorrow

imagine Whitman being our 19th century Caitlin Jenner

while right before us

magnificence is rung

from the soul; milked from the burning

rhythmics of sameness.

Try falling in love

with some Euclidean axiom you've never met.

Oh, how Malcolm would have loved today

as the sun shown brightest and pretty on the revolution.

I mean, you really have to try

hard to believe in the service of abstract truths:

In angels.

In virgins,

or the plumage of an extinct bird.

Reviews

[Ken Simm.]

Now what do I say? I like poetry and I like this. Hmmm.
There are some classic crystal lines in this and yet it comes together in a complete feat for the reader. You are singing the body electric. Excellence personified.
As an aside the best graffiti I ever say was ' Leda loves Swans'.

[h d e rushin]

thank you Ken for stopping by and "Leda loves Swans' sounds like a great name for a poem..
I miss you...dana

[Ken Simm.]

You are welcome Dana. Not gone just busy painting. Building up my portfolio for an upcoming exhibition.

[Cory Barrett]

I'm Imagining Caitlin Jenner, hugging the bloody bodies of a wounded soldier on the cover of esquire.

It's a rather beautiful image.

Her make up undone, hair in a tryst with bloody scalp of the soldier.
both of their bodies tired, but no gold medals on this field.

[h d e rushin]

thank you Cory.....and I love your new picture...dana

[Terpsichore]

'I don't like poetry,' a phrase often heard, mostly uttered by folk who've never read a line in their life. Of all the arts, it is the most compellingly communicative. Doesn't matter if it's a Neanderthal grunt, a few chalked line on a tenement wall, or a passage from Homer's Odyssey, it's what we humans do. T

[h d e rushin]

thanks for stopping by Terpsichore....I love you...dana

[emmajoy]

If i understood some of the long words beginning with capitals i'd agree with you! Grief, where's my encyclopedia!

Whatever, however, you write where other people fear to tread - you lay things out in front of the reader and invite comments wise or crass (like mine!) Seems there are those who walk head in clouds, blocking out brushed strokes of would.be genius, of using words as if they were new born. Perhaps?

[Beccy]

'Australopithecus trying to decode the alphabet.' I adore that line; the image it conjures up is of beetle browed Morlocks trying to figure out why they've scrawled something on the wall of a cave; they know the how, but not the why; but even as far back as then, the urge to communicate could not be denied.

For the rest of the poem, which is simply wonderful, I would follow in Jacob's path, he has called it perfectly.

Beccy.

[Stephen]

I really unjoyed reading this poem. Thanks for sharing

[h d e rushin]

thank you Stephen for stopping by to visit my friend.....dana

[Joel Armstrong]

Wow.I liked it because it is so strange.Its extraordinary.Its like nothing I've read before.And by the way I really do like Whitman's poems.

[h d e rushin]

we are all, in one way or another, the children of Whitman. Thank you for stopping by my friend.
read morewe are all, in one way or another, the children of Whitman. Thank you for stopping by my friend.

dana

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i think the true definition of poetry is simply "it is not prose"

there is a such a wide range to exactly what poetry is.
and for those who don't care for poetry, the rhyme schemes, the meter, the form, there is the love of words scrawled on that radio shack...or on the subway--even as simon and garfunkel's "poem on the underground wall" could be just four letters...
but graffiti is poetry just as much as anything ever written by Longfellow or Yeats or Keats...

and the Beats with the stream of consciousness stuff...there are those who could like that kind of poetry....anything scratched in the mind---the thrill of words...

stuffy poetry can turn some away....maybe we can rekindle the love of poetry....if we just write with "plumage"
and write what the average reader can like, rather than just writing English department poetry.

what is really good poetry is appealing to all, and will last forever.

[h d e rushin]

spoken like a true educator Jacob. I had teachers along the way that encouraged me to write,
not to think. Poetry is first and foremost, thinking. Perhaps not reasoning, but definitely thinking. Thank you dear brother for your insight....dana

[Cory Barrett]

It is not prose... So then it could be every thing else. Kind of a great feeling.

[ANTO]

Given the title I just had to shuffle this to the top of the review deck Dana and I'm glad I did. Banksy has just as much validity as the old masters with their hidden symbolism and in poetry its the same.
I am a great fan of an up and coming act (there is a huge swathe of spoken word artists sitting waiting to be given their chance to shine) - his name is ironically, 'George the Poet'. Perhaps had Byron been born in this day and age he would be rapping just like Skee-Lo I reckon - so Im totally with you on this amazing poem.
Kudos you talented poet.

[h d e rushin]

thank you dear friend for those words of inspiration. And although I am new to spoken or
"slam" poetry, I think that I might be warming up to it. There's great value in every poem
ANTO as you know yourself. dana

[W.k.kortas]

I have little to say but this--nothing in any Norton Anthology or its like past, present, or future betters this piece.

[h d e rushin]

thank you wk, for believing that I can make sense of what we do, even if 'art' ain't the
true purpose. Thank you for those words of inspiration my friend...dana