Easy
I thought for awhile how, or whether, to answer
That column on poetry.
You know the one, tongue-in-cheek, yet speaking
scorn on anything not an aw-shucks response to life.
(Yet, I, too, like rhymes, and comfort and things to be easy).
To brag about not knowing a word is now become
a password – shorthand for being authentic.
(Laureate is to be crowned with laurels;
earned by heroes or poets great in name,
once, they were the same.)
It’s not fair to site Poe and Frost, or even Kilmer,
without also mentioning
some horrible sing-song rhymes,
like Hallmark cards, that deaden the mind.
(Yet – once – poets and heroes – they were the same!)
Striking the populist note is easy,
let’s talk about painting, too;
Just drip or slash some paint on canvass.
And if only all music were without disturbing dissonance
Set in a pleasing major key— how easy art and life would be.
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