literature

Death of the Poet

Deviation Actions

Published: May 20, 2013

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Literature Text

Dear poetry,

This is your challenge,
my eternal chore,
to restate the truth
like never before-
but I’m imperfect
at my very core
and hypocrisy
is what I abhor
so you may expect
my work to be poor
enough for me to
be crushed into gore
with failed attempts
to take wing and soar
when all I wanted
was something much more
than emptiness and
inherited war
and pointless details
of imagined lore
which most of us tend
to simply ignore
at the piercing sound
of a lion’s roar
or the convenience
of a nearby store…
what am I truly
writing these words for?

Let’s merely pretend
that this isn’t me
but the voice of God
or L. Ron Hubbard
or whoever you
wish for it to be
since facts remain facts
no matter the source,
no matter the cause,
since the trustworthy
are also humans
prone to failure;
so prone to a fault
that we hold dearly-
the sum of our faith
measured in dollars-
rewarded by credit
and paper money…
for some odd reason
I find this funny!

So I conclude that
death of the poet
allows you to see
but never know it-
please don't ask me why
as this isn't my
concept of a lie
like the will to fly

Not to be confused with the Russian poem with the same name and completely different message.

Things to look out for and interpret completely out of the context of the poet's life, just as he would want:
Death by failed attempts to be perfect.
Repeated use of "I" in a poem in which the poet is asking to be ignored, which may very well be paradoxical.
Repeated claims that humanity is flawed and therefore what "seems" true holds great potential for distortion.
Reference to poetry as an entity, not an art form.
Changing the subject once the view becomes narrower.

The views in this poem may or may not be shared by the poet, but the poet does maintain that such musings are irrelevant.