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Photo: Me in front of the painting I'd just sold the the person taking the photograph, 2006.
Ode to Poets
©2021, Olan L. Smith
Surety to us! Believe in brilliantly written poetry
From the heavenly to the lowly plains of Earth;
It's entwined around consciousness for transport.
We decline hemlock touch our lips, blushed in blue,
Prose be our death knell, and we a compass uncharted
By abundant sea breezes, easily turned to squalls.
We mourn unwritten songs, great poems unrecorded
Verse turn to ashes, we are a turned plate broken,
Winnowed by age. Rhyme's unconsumed blow
The trumpet, ring creation's bell, it tolls for us, life.
When the clanging of the bell say, no! Insight is lost, verse
Withers on the vine, and from heaven to hell the poet
Descends, without coin for passage, across the river Styx.
The written rhyme dies in Tartarus, where chains dangle
From the wrist and neck bones of former poets. No
Songs are sung, great plays are unsummoned, for the poet
Failed to pay the ferryman his due. The warning was
Unheeded, and hemlock consumed by reader and poet
Alike, all collapsed into the nightmare of Hades making.
Yet, renewal is but a wrist away, inscribe the works
On the lips of gods, from their mind to ours.
Revive the tents set up by the death's remnant.
Like a volcano spewing new earth, write we out of
The ashes life. Reset the ear of society, rail clearly,
"The poet is not dead, for we had thrown off the
Shackles, and we've paid the river man his dues."
Now, ring the bell, clang our cymbals in the darkness,
And sing Intune to all the realms of Earth and Sky,
"Life has returned to reanimate!" The poets gather
Their trophies, and sit upon their throne in the stars.
YOU ARE READING
Poems from the Quill, by Olan L. Smith
Poezja"Poems from the Quill" is where I place current works that don't fall into other collections. It is here you will find obscure poems that range from constraint to free-verse. I began this collection as a contest entry, years ago, for what was then t...
