Poetic Reflections: nonsense and stuff

’Tis another month and I must keep the promise to myself of writing a new poem.  Why did I get myself into this?  I have absolutely no idea what to express.  But that’s the thing about poems.  They don’t have to be meticulously plotted.  They generally do not have to be scrupulously honed.  This is why children are some of the best poets.  They write what flows out.  And that, in my estimation, is the true art of poetry.

What pours from my brain, unfortunately, can be rather complex.  Inordinately unnatural.  Exuberantly abstract.  Inutterally obsessantly compulstorily verbosedly illegiant.  (Okay, that last “word” — and I use the term loosely — hovers somewhere between illegible, illegal, and allegiance.  You figure it out.  Or don’t.  I can’t recommend it.)

Yes, it probably is a blessing I primarily funnel such inkling-ations into prose.  That’s easier to ignore, whereas poetry tends to leap off the page and demand attention.  I really can’t understand why it isn’t more popular.  It certainly used to be.  Have we lost a degree of refinement?  Has civilization de-volved?

Be that as it may or may not be, I am writing this off the top of my head so don’t expect a detailed analysis of modern society.  I have my life story for that.  This is supposed to be fun, because poetry is a blast!  No, I’m not joking.  It’s bursting with little surprises and wows and “Ah-ha!” moments, those bombs of insight that can startle you into amazement.  Well, that’s how I perceive it.

Everyone’s entitled to their opinion.  It is my belief that if everyone wrote — or at least read — a poem each month, the world might be a better place.  They would be forced to contemplate Life, decipher beauty — whether beautiful or not — in what is around them.  Poetry can cleanse and heal the spirit.

Now, I consider myself a poet, yet I haven’t written a multitude of “poems” per se.  My poetic passion has poured out through songs and the wordplay-slash-stylings of my prose.  Quite frankly, I love language.  English in particular, but all languages.  Except foul language, which is so unnecessary and subvertive, yet is spreading like a fungus or blight to obscure the majesty of words.

Some of my inspirations are Robert Frost, Lewis Carroll and Doctor Seuss; the lyrics from the classic film THE WIZARD OF OZ; and songwriters Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, John Denver, Carole King, Lee Hazelwood, David Foster, Dolly Parton . . .  The list could go on.  And on.  And on.  We are, after all, the sum of our existence.

Guess I’ll do what comes natural and compose a piece of Lyric Nonsense.  I still have no idea what I’m about to say.