Conquistadores

(on some aspects of poetry, poets in the present age)

they trample everywhere now every bush and briar

the unmetered/metered mercenaries, only interested in power

in scoring, seeming the shining light of the hour

or what passes for it in dubious translation

poets in their skins and out for hire

not lit from any Orphic fire, self bought self sold

what's in it for them? while words turn cold, even glacial

at the prospect:

their borrowed skins, their furrowed pelts, glad to be

listed on the global shelf by pilfering the local Delph

whatever else they can to stride colossus like o'er sea and

land with an

uber networking glad hand

oh to be John Keats away from this under the myrtle tree

the nightingale singing only for thee

or a friend of Keats:the bride of the unvanquished urn

the pure song of pure liquidity transcribed

in quiet reflection earned,

banished from all this or self exiled

knowing what you know the heart should turn to snows in the wild

first or to stone,against these murky tides

the heart and its strictures cast inside, in words in beauty 

forever enshrined far away from this she repined: the Soul;

my protagonist flinging no paper roses

from the cardboard balconies;

only myself weeping into the bitter grass, dill and the tarragon;

Constantinople in the mists;Albion, opal, I turned to go:

longing for the poetry that lasts, outlasts this dumbshow;

this picaresque.

mary angela douglas 14 june 2021;15 june 2021