Nowadays, kids write poetry on computers, so what a long strange trip it has been, but like many other foot-washing poets, I, too, believe that poetry cannot be written on the computer screen, jaded by the pallid glimmer of artificial light.
You declare: "I receive / my words / in a loud, clear voice / directly from Mt. Sinai. / I shall convert / forms to alchemy. / I am the Magus."
How bold to say that great inspiration does not lie in some invisible or abysmal mount gluttoned by Olympians, but rather in the scruffy, viscous pages of a lexicon. Students do not learn nowadays to write with the dictionary or thesaurus nearby because of the advent of the hyper-information basket, bearing immediate knowledge at one's fingertips. I think of Neftali saw our children today, he would deliver an unforgettable glare straight into their eyes and piercing their souls, and seeking or rather requesting, one last time, that someone in this lost crowd of word-swiftness will turn around, marble looking-glass in hand, and say, "I'll take on the new role as leader of the poetic gait, whittler of the momentous absurd."
That'll be something. Such is the danger in velocity, shaken up, stirred, and offered in a martini glass with broken promises and passé poesy. People do not understand rhythm anymore. Rhyme, when dragged on a leash and placed under your nose, still caries no smell; mood is what they want. Feelings! Revelations!
Take your time with it! Send it on vacation for a while.
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