Saturday 16 June 2012

Poetic Tough Love

You may think, during the course of this poem, when I become all ranty 
   and demonic,
That my agitated persona is, in fact, not an agitated persona at all, but 
   simply one which is knowingly ironic;
That behind the raging bile,
There is a charming and engaging smile;
That I don’t genuinely despise the targets of my merciless and hateful 
   evisceration;
And really, I’m laughing with you, behind the sonic façade of this 
   furiously enraged incantation.

But you’d be wrong.

This is a poem in which I shall be genuinely complaining,
About poets who step into the public arena having studiously avoided any 
   notion of being entertaining;
Who spew forth lines which they wrongly believe are both intensely 
   important and emotionally draining,
But which are, in fact, dazzlingly inept.
We’ve all heard these poets; we’ve heard them, and we’ve wept:
Tears of frustration,
Tears of agitation,
Tears at being subjected to their symbolic masturbation;
But tears which we never cry, because we’re too polite
To stand up and say: your poetry’s shite!

For these poets, whose attempts at poetic refulgence
Begin – and end – with nauseating self-indulgence;
Whose poetry has all of the charm,
Of an essay on self-harm;
For them, with their pretentiously opaque and useless poetic 
   constructions,
I have written a set of performance poetry instructions,
To contemplate before the next occasion when they unwittingly bore an 
   audience into catatonic submission.
That’s right – this poem is a bit of free tuition,
From a patience-sapped poet on a do-or-die mission.

I’ve made it pretty simple for them to follow these instructions, although 
   I’m pretty sure that they won’t,
Indeed, it couldn’t be any simpler; it’s just one word: don’t.

3 comments:

  1. Gosh, the lion has been ruffled- hear him roar!

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  2. Each of us is convinced that it's all those others you're talking about here. I know, for example, that I've certainly never been guilt of any of this. I'm equally sure that no-one has ever listened to either of us with any degree of boredom, or thought "he could have said that better".
    ;-)

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  3. And such poets will overrun their time slots, failing to look up once at the glazed eyes before them, mistaking the eventual applause for approbation, instead of relief..............

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