Unpoetical

The unpoetical

Sweats ambitiously,  

Mars a brow tirelessly

Than good ol’ Wordsworth*.

The unpoetical

Lives to scribble and squiggle   

To write not a harsh life sentence,

Nor a Petrarchan sonnet

But one as simple

And as single

As a line of a plain sonnet.

Then the unpoetical

Extols this line, supposes

It the greatest in all earth.

But the ‘great’ lyric he composes

Alas! Is as scantily set;

Deficient of all senses   

As Sisyphus’*existence.

The unpoetical

Sells aesthetic skill and all

Artistic talents. Trades the soul

For false fame. For prosaic sake.

For a penname, immortal like Blake*,

Obsessed with fleeting success.

Forgetting the flighty consequences

That leaves life with nothing less

Mocking than bigotries, theories,

And philosophies of failed artistries,

In the footnotes of poetic histories.

The only poets so appealing,

Unaccomplished and unmarketed,

Yet charming and enchanting,

Are verily the poets so inferior.

But popular poets so superior

Dangle high in bubbly air, floated

With whirlwinds. Bloated, so appear

Blown out of proportion. Inflated,

Exaggerated, in what they really are.

A gifted poet?

A truly gifted poet

Sadly is the most unpoetical

Character of all creative creatures.

Or creature with creative characters.

But a no-talent substandard poet,

With third-rate lines so unlyrical

Is feted ‘such a distinguished genius;

Ingenious! Gorgeous! Magnanimous!’

The dimmer their verses gleam,

The more sensational they seem.

Plenty of petty poets

Publish and perform

Voluminous piles of Psalms

Of such mediocre rhymes,

That only puff up these pets

As pretty attractive parrots.

Prattling

Mimicking

Every pantomime

‘Croak-a-cackle-cook’ is a lyric

Their beaks can never connive.

Sadly, the other can create music

But in tunes they daren’t pulsate

Nor are predisposed to resonate.

Poetic lines one can never live.

©Roundsquare .

*Wordsworth – an aspiring but failed poet in V.S Naipaul’s Miguel Street.

* Sisyphus – in Greek myth, cursed to endlessly push a giant rock up the mountain but would roll back.

* Blake – William Blake, a great English poet, also known for religious sketching (Book of Job) and Dante’s Inferno.