The Death of Poetry

The Death of Poetry

Oh yes poetry is dying

and you will say to me

that new poets are arising

from many directions

Rappers and song writers

children writing in schools

and the always lonely and lovesick

teenagers who ache for love

old men and women

who have seen too much

and know things that will

be forgotten or must be written

Again the age conspires

to turn itself gray

a dead body unwashed

and prepared for final burial

Yes there are many who oppose

this change of colors to one

Poetry is violent

a product of injustice

a creation for those

with starved thought

Poetry is an empty mouth

a cell with bars opened wide

that chews the tough to soft

The swallow becomes

an upset stomach

that vomits a need for change

Once poetry charged the soul

to give generations

a reason to live and create

Now the unseen fills

batteries in phones

with clues to neutral colors

no one can unravel

For the reader poetry may live

but think of all the poets

who will never be read again

the ones who write in desperation

burying their scribbles

in the electronic graveyards

forgotten in unmarked

digital graves

Oh yes poetry is dying

as it always has

day by day

hour by hour

resurrected only by the needy

who discover shadows

in the corners of their lives

where the flash of words

may bring the moment

into focus like a famous photo

Keep searching

through the unfinished headstones

for poetry that has died

Some is being buried today
Mourn with others at the open hole
that is deeper by the second

Barry G. Wick