Morning Break
The morning breaks but yet again
Through the ancient courts of modern men
As a guiding light through hidden dealings
For life of course is for the living
And not some story to be written read
Or passive reminders from the dead.
Life is life and life is hard
Regardless of who we were or are.
But the art of living breeds art in life
Like midnight casting shades of light
To be had and held and one day told
In modern times like in days of old.
To consume the spirit with liquid fire
Or enslaves us with our heart’s desire.
That sparks our passions for love and life
Creating equal parts of peace and strife
Like woven silk with blended covers,
Misery and ecstasy and the remnants left over,
Is the price each pays for the waiting rise
Or the, “dateless bargain,” still compromised;
As the precipice for the driftless soul--
And for poets and profits…an enormous toll
That must be suffered to suffice
Lest his labored craft be sacrificed.
For as creative waters run crystal clear,
They\'re quickly are clouded by the insincere
That flood the plains of mass appeal
And drown the center of something real.
Still, caution must reign or less destroy
The parts of a man that befell the boy
As with each passing line cleaves another strip
That loosens the pen through writer\'s grip
Designed to forge, to tear, to sway
And eventually---Betray.
For art possesses such strange affinities,
A tangled web of splendid trickery.
That seems so simple spoken plain,
By mimicking others with a different name
As a copy of a copy but cloaks heart
And the business of imitation is no a form of art.
Nor the window dressings of works before
It’s the mind’s eye brushstroke that matters much more.
And not from the old traditions of a different time
Not in meter, or in patterns, or rhymes.
They but wrestle shadows and confined to caves,
When all becomes one then all becomes slaves.
No—art is life and life is living
Beneath that voice is intent misgiving.
That mark each succession of generations past,
While the sum collection is all that lasts.
As the Devil’s due makes for idle hands
Innovation is a treasure that defines our lands.
Recklessly cautious with that which is loaned
Reshape what is needed but make it your own.
And with baited breath and absence of prose
Write in the ways that most might oppose.
And let the morning break once more again,
Through the modern courts of living men.