Joe Visits a Charnel House (poem)

I would not count Alexander Pope
for essays on criticism emulatable
or rhyming Sopho’s lines
with free verse inflatable

  Each Rubicon of signs is language to bear
shaggy, woolly mammoth
saber toothed tares
sewn to winds bright froth foam to share

  Tawddgyrch Cadwynog, Cyhydedd Hir
through woods too lonely, dark and deep
reach double troubled, soiled grubs shear
crenelated rubble’s iambic pentameters to keep

  Noh rhyme fated vines to people kind maidens
or till fields of echo’s hallowed havens
where warre trod heavily upon winter mists
for many a son felt death’s fast swift kiss

  Poems were hollow those fated morns
when politicians made themselves legends born
the legend shot out hope with mind of a gun
leaving good reason no good place to run

  Write, write till the art’s content
of prosody and power, shrapnel and bowers
lives taken without thinking spent
of calculations for-others
tolling bells tinkling hours

  One foot after another
lines march forward through time
pile up bodies of stanzas
with verses and rhyme

  Make poems, not war.