Poetic Uncertainty

Poetry is my red-headed stepchild. It’s the relative you send a Christmas card to each year to acknowledge their existence in the family but you quickly send them to voice mail on the occasions they call.

I was introduced to poetry in elementary school. It was lyrical, the sing-song style that every little kid is introduced to, inevitably leading them down the path to discovering that no English word rhymes with Orange. Then poetry tried to get reacquainted with me in high school and college, and he was in full rebellion. Poetry didn’t rhyme or have a fun meter anymore. No, he was free-versing it. But, it just wasn’t the absence of the rhyming, he also had branched out his romantic side into sonnets, become the class clown with limericks, and even traveled abroad, coming home calling himself a Haiku. I couldn’t keep up and I didn’t like it. It was like trying to read the King James Version of the Bible as a child.

I was not poetry’s type either. I didn’t go to coffee shops with a Macbook Pro covered in stickers demanding to free Tibet and polar bears alike while wearing a crocheted beanie and drinking something akin to coffee. We weren’t compatible and I was okay with that.

So, when poetry started knocking on my door like an unannounced Jehovah’s witness, I did what we all have done; muted the TV, told the kids to be quiet, and hid in the kitchen, away from open windows until the knocking stopped. I then sneaked to the upstairs blinds to see if the coast was clear, nervous to part them for fear of being seen.

Why had he come back? We had nothing to talk about. I was fine writing my fiction work and he had his niche among the English Lit students across university campuses. I still don’t know the answer, but this idea wouldn’t leave my head. So I indulged it, manipulated it, and for God’s sake it had to rhyme.

I mentioned a few posts ago that I would be sharing some of my work. When I wrote that, I meant a chapter or two in my developing novel. Instead, I give you the first poem I think I have written since elementary school. I’ll be honest, I ran it past a few friends first. After a friend told me it was good, and he could actually understand it, I felt that I had come to terms with poetry, even if it is on shaky ground. I didn’t even have to wear a beanie or join a cause. I just had to write it the way I wanted. So below is my poem. It may be missing some punctuation here or there but I still think it’s pretty understandable even if it was written on a PC.

Icons

The colossals of the past stood stoic in their stone

Watching us live before fading into bone,

We praised our own hands worshiping what was sown

Still, they stood silent, not even a kindly groan.

We filled shelves and libraries with literary tomes

about the busts we rent, sitting silently in our homes.

Oh, the glory we heap on the marvels of today, our monuments still silent, molded stone and lifeless clay.

So why do we cry, weep when they fall

Aren’t they just lifeless forms, standing rigid and tall?

Maybe it’s the artist and all his toll and torment, or maybe it’s the shape these figures represent.

Some fall by nature, taking back what is hers

Some fall by man, by the anger that it stirs

Whether rage or storm, the assailant does wield

The colossal is reborn, refusing to yield.