Young Poets

Young poets write words wet with angst

And angry whipsnaps at the world.

Hissed whispers harangue injustice

With facile manipulation.

Phrases, like white-foaming river

Rapids, rushes revelation;

Revolutionary in their

Mind. Their paths of poetic truth

Symbolized by their pacing feet,

Disrupted by four-letter words

As if the sludge and flux of slang

Was less cliché than moon and June.

They’re def in their rap, stringing things

Still damp from camp on lines of twine

For the sky to dry.

I could cry

From the rhythmic monotony.

Written 2004 with tongue firmly in cheek. There are many fine young poets doing Slam Poetry with clever rhyme and rhythm, poets much better than I. This is aimed only at those who rhyme over and over the same simplistic moon-June of old time hacks or think stringing curse words together is the height of witticism.





Illustration: Parnassus by Raphael [Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino], 1510-11