Ode to Unheard Voices
This is a poem for the poems that will not be heard.
The epics that stretch the fibers of strands of hair
that stand erect on the back of listeners necks
flexing in time to the beat, the beat, the beat, the beat
of a rhythmic rhyme drum line
that still cannot stretch the plexiglass of time limits.
This is a poem for the poems that will not be heard.
The unibrow voices and the two-step Queen cadeavers
who arrange alphabet soup like Picasso on loose-leaf tombstones
but shrink like salted slugs from the Frakenstein role
of sending jolts of reanimative voodoo juice
through those stolen sewn-together stanzas called poetry
necessary to make them stand and calypso dance.
This is a poem for the poems that will not be heard.
The broken chicken neck guillotine gong-show poets
snap, clacked, and clanged by drunken doped-out scores
smashed face-forward into that yellow brick road,
and the Wizard only wants to rub their noses in their own poems,
clicking together those rubies fives three times,
sending them in a clockwork spiral back to Kansas
when their real home is on this stage, on any stage.
This is a poem for the poets that will not be heard.
And I'd like to martyr my time for your rhymes,
but I have my own worlds to create,
worlds of words,
and not just read on tattered paperback pages
but also screamed and whispered on stages
stained with vomit, nicotine and soul-streaks
from the burned rubber eyes of hundreds
consumed by their own flames of passion on this stage.
I have to add my flame
to the poems that have been heard
and burned in the hearts of the voices
that have not been heard,
and given them the courage to be
another nail driven into the coffin of conformity.
This is a poem to make sure that all poems are heard.
This is a poem for the poems that will not be heard.
The epics that stretch the fibers of strands of hair
that stand erect on the back of listeners necks
flexing in time to the beat, the beat, the beat, the beat
of a rhythmic rhyme drum line
that still cannot stretch the plexiglass of time limits.
This is a poem for the poems that will not be heard.
The unibrow voices and the two-step Queen cadeavers
who arrange alphabet soup like Picasso on loose-leaf tombstones
but shrink like salted slugs from the Frakenstein role
of sending jolts of reanimative voodoo juice
through those stolen sewn-together stanzas called poetry
necessary to make them stand and calypso dance.
This is a poem for the poems that will not be heard.
The broken chicken neck guillotine gong-show poets
snap, clacked, and clanged by drunken doped-out scores
smashed face-forward into that yellow brick road,
and the Wizard only wants to rub their noses in their own poems,
clicking together those rubies fives three times,
sending them in a clockwork spiral back to Kansas
when their real home is on this stage, on any stage.
This is a poem for the poets that will not be heard.
And I'd like to martyr my time for your rhymes,
but I have my own worlds to create,
worlds of words,
and not just read on tattered paperback pages
but also screamed and whispered on stages
stained with vomit, nicotine and soul-streaks
from the burned rubber eyes of hundreds
consumed by their own flames of passion on this stage.
I have to add my flame
to the poems that have been heard
and burned in the hearts of the voices
that have not been heard,
and given them the courage to be
another nail driven into the coffin of conformity.
This is a poem to make sure that all poems are heard.