Getting tired am I, not old man tired, though there

is cause for it, no – white Wadjela tired, tired of my

words just being cast to the wind, no longer paper

tied, just out there on whatever breezes, a world

of verse populated by writers seated at the base of

empty flagpoles.

These days poetry editors are still wrapped in figurative

nappies, no sense of literary traditions, largely unread,

brought up with lie back entertainment from first

consciousness, multi coloured Fisher Price plastic mobiles,

shapes that twirl and make noises when touched, prodded,

experiential nightmares that are suspended above them,

in their cots, no time for human contact, laughing and

giggling, word formation, same as the poems that arrive

on-line, no art to find the mind’s construction in careful

calligraphy, these are not crafted, grafted, just formed as

interesting typography, emblematic designs, with no real

connection with forbears of literature, poems just drift

across their screens, disassociations that pass for poesy.

Words, phrases and images that carry with them links,

associations and reference to Joyce, Eliot, Plath, Dylan

boozing Thomas et al, crafted connections for the

aficionados to revel in, note, be entertained by, simply

pass them by in their sheltered cocoons, and so the

pomes come and go the way of heaped soft plastic, once

something with a purpose when it could be recycled, now

with the surfeit of modern poems en route to landfills,

no-one reaching into the heap to save or resurrect some

poetic insights.

I am tired of editors who cannot distinguish between

graceful imagery and stirring rhythms, between the Waste

Land and this wasted land, the latter being pushed heap

on heap above the Yamuna, near Delhi. The river drowning

in its new layers of detritus. Competitions spawn poetry

submissions from all and sundry, those with Masters [mastery]

and Doctorates [doctoring] come bearing writing learned and

crafted in academia, no sturm und drang here, just formulaic

poesy shaped and shunted to pass creative writing degrees.

Sonnet [5:7:5]

five syllables here

created as literature

but meaningless stuff      You have mastered the rubric, now for your doctorate

Is life’s struggle no longer the motivation, something

from Romanticism, Paris ghetto, bar, café, poverty,

breaking baguettes with those who had tasted bitterness,

smelt the bent and broken tubes of paint, the wolf at

the door, fingers too cold to press the keys of the old

Remington, writers guiding ships that would pass in

the night or in smoke filled rooms exchanging life’s

forces.

I am too old to live with these disconnected

five finger fantasies on keyboard and screen,

prefer watching clouds pass on the sky above

the cliffs, those poems bearing blood and grime,

shadows of lived experience, not these works that,

like unwanted presents, stuff from Aldi, creeping towards

the tip of dead bones of would-be poetry, being forgotten,

adding nothing to the corpus of those who brought

language to life, Middle English, Greek and Latin, Norman

imagery, traditions bearing rhythm, rhyme, echoing

speech patterns woven with subtle understanding.