The Morning Breaks

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.