poetry :: select

when you hear brilliant works
Wordsworth Beethoven Eliot
do you recall
their philistines shouted them
avant guard idiots

we have those who condemn
who forget their ancient brethren
detested their supposèdly safe heroes

we thank our past's enlightened ears
who heard their avant guard
and selected

we now
we have the duty
to seek the diamond in the charcoal

but those who don't try
who stand and piss in
who contribute derision
abuse the taste
their predecessors hated

we who write
we poets
we must push
must risk

our glist may die before us
with us
but may survive the hundred years of staid
for some future child
born beyond the death of all the living now
to glint our work alight