Last month, because it was my turn to lead our Writer's Group meeting, it was up to me to choose the homework topic. The assignment: Write about something near and dear to you.
The 'Something near and dear to me' I chose to write about; keeping Rhythm and Rhyme alive in poetry and working at perfecting its art!
Forbid, that we without remorse stand by
To watch the Bedrock of Ballad decay
Where echoes of Past’s half-mad mortals lie
Preserved in poetry unto this day
…for roar of words that warred within their breasts
They did not choose,
but were chosen for this;
To pen, with metered yen, the soul’s requests
While siblings slept in unencumbered bliss
…the poet wrestled with vessels of thought
To tame the tempest as it seared and surged
And sparred with impotence of what was not
Until the will of quill and query merged
To spill, unfettered to the quest of rhyme
And poetry that stands the test of time
***
Forbid the Master-grid of poetry
Should crumble in a noisy corridor
Where groan is not honed into symmetry
But heaped on trays nobody hungers for
As, sacrificed on altars of free verse
The sanctity of poetry is lost
For freedom without law can be a curse
And words reduced to ash, its sorry cost
Because there is no protocol or code
To set off’rings of letter-art apart
They fall, like flower-petals to a road
Where foot-traffic tramples on works of heart
But where the ancient authors gave their all
The poetry of cadency stands tall
***
Forbid we don the popular veneer
Of free speech, forgetful of consequence
Darling, the end
of all of us is near
Then, all that will remain is recompense
For ink, in the heaven of passion spilled
Where filament of penmanship, my love
Endures long after heart and hand are stilled
The wherewithal of madrigal to prove
When dust-to-dust reclaims its ordained Must
When love and lust that steers us is annulled
Pray, what will flutter in the wake of trust
After the soul from Frame of Name is culled
I wonder if, in some far yet-to-be
A piece of us will live in poetry
© Janet Martin
