Our beloved,
‘they’ whisper your demise
far, far too early
‘they’ wish it, maybe
‘they’ dare not, proclaim it
for
no other source of solace
ever existed
to cater to all
born from all
moulded,
curated,
spiked,
chewed out
and
consumed - loud
or
with deft sanctity, treasured: in our mind’s mouth,
embracing a new generation
with that progressive mindset of ‘spoken word’
Epic heritage - wilfully denied
by futuristic young minds, with their assembly line Degrees of certainty
fighting
to keep You modern, remake You in their image
with ‘open mic’ nights, denouncing
all archaic rhyming traditions
while reigniting discovery paths: to Beowulf, Homer and their like.
Written versions too, are now
text chained, to character count – limitations,
or
d
o t t
e d
all over a canvas
of digital
1
&
0’s…
And, yet - Yet still!
Our beloved, through it all
You, remain that unyielding mirror of truth
Inked-out
and excavated bravely, brazenly - raw
from all of humanity’s
emotional baggage claim - drains,
a check point - dam
holding back the suffocating tidal waves
of Bukowski’s
‘genius Crowd’
and ‘their’ self-subjugating wilful ignorance of petty intolerance
to all things different - but still: defiantly proud!
‘They’ lie
to comfort those 3am introspection\'s - fuelling, treacherous realisations
of self-distorting silhouettes in their SNS profiles:
adulthood’s, playground trappings of cesspool conformity
until, that hour inevitably arrives
where nothing authentic remains
allowing that crippling misery to threaten
their last thread to true warmth – bereft
of all things real.
Then maybe: ‘they’ flip or scroll a page
Read or Hear
a word or two and swallow
a mouthful of rhythmic empathy
pulsing - to their heartbeat’s cadence
stumbling upon that lifesaving Classic
of bequeathed wisdom - soothing: all their aches
from
inside
out,
one - breath of Poetic salvation at a time…
© L. B. Mek
July 2020