In the beginning was the word, the word That from the solid bases of the light Abstracted all the letters of the void; And from the cloudy bases of the breath The word flowed up, translating to the heart First characters of birth and death.
~ Dylan Thomas, In The Beginning
NoPe
The 1st poem wasn’t Written in English In fact it wasn’t Written in any words At all
The 1st poem Was a flower that A hairy cave man gave to His beloved
Who thoughtfully Pondered it’s meaning & then ate it And without emotion Left him
For a muscular Neanderthal
Named Chad
So the first poem Was actually a failure A gesture
Of heartbreak & love Loneliness & longing
But not enough to Convey it or even Reach it’s destination
The heart
Or the soul
And on the cave walls Were painted crude Drawings depicting mating To let a woman know That she was desired
To which their response Was ” Ew” and a new Word which they created called
” NO”
But the art approach Didn’t work Quite well either
NOTE: (*See Bathroom Poetry History of)
WIKIPEDIA
But once humans Could speak? Talk? Well the game Was on
Hunter gatherers & Future jock types Started getting angry Because skinny guys In fur beret hats starting Stealing their women
But they couldn’t figure out how And to this day
Still cannot
And that’s how it All began
Poets & artists Being treated Like outcasts Unwanted & disliked (Musicians soon to follow)
Because they had Higher IQs And first somehow knew That words could be turned
Into “Magic” & Into light
Spells that could Invoke what feelings They held urges they felt And the things they could see Or could not
Like the silent moments Of trees swaying in the distance Like the beauty of colors in the air And sea, animals & nature
And within these words They worshipped all The mysteries which they Couldn’t fathom or understand
And turned them Into something Called poems
Myths And gods
So in the beginning Poetry wasn’t really popular
And still isn’t
But without it We’d all be lost
For it is the whole That makes us all human And what it means to be Human
And that Is all we know
That and that throughout Human history that muscular guys Named Chad and with similar names Still hate us
Not of these golden days But in this dead choir of reprieve Of anguish of suffering of days
Let us all sing of the 21st century Of all our failures & the false Triumphs & of the true progress Of men
Unmade
Undone
Unseen
Watch & See how we So easily destroy
Ignore
Incite
Our own defeat
And on repeat Like a bad news story Like history Still worship greed And money The holy dollar And all the fat politicians On all sides taking Away what we once Called ” Freedom”
As a quaint, dismembered idea
As wars are still waged Poverty still a slave We post all our success Stories
But never our shame
As a dead earth No longer of beauty But of a violence unimagined And obscene
Disgusting.
Weapons Unimagined & unseen The end of everything The end
And the tragedy The murder of all days
Like all the animals dying & Loosing space
Oh how inconvenient
How 1980s And Green
Our voices & our Votes now all dead and Useless worthless things
Without any real power for Truth or change
Countries & governments In decline still crumbling And arguing, fighting Killing over race
And over oil
A disgrace
A disfigurement a World burning Forests dying No gods answering No gods listening No god here
Because No god cares Or listens Anymore
This planet This rock Used up & Separated
Dysfunctional Diseased
Destroyed
With hate With rage
Peace Now just Another trendy word
Forgotten
So for thee I Sing Of this body Dissected
Damaged by Monsters & corrupt men Fake patriots & grifters Looking for trophies And hiding behind a flag
And blaming All other living beings For everything They’ve done
More convenience More sorrow More lies The scapegoat Followed by the Image of the Tower card
Falling
As the seasons change The leaves remain But we never change
And never will
So for thee I Sing – Scream
For the impoverished Families and their children starving I Sing for the ignored And uneducated the unemployed And for all those Guilty of being Human beings
With hope With dreams With love With faith
I sing for humanity I sing for change
For Black lives For all lives For Suicides And for all those buried Beneath us in unmarked graves of Unrest & genocide And for all those who Believe in a Jesus Christ
( Or not )
I Sing for The Great Spirit That once roamed This land now a mere Figment of imagination Lost in the blood of My ancestors
The flags all at half mast Concealing the sadness The truth
Of a nation Once called America
Ashamed
I Sing of the body The whole of the soul Dissected
Diseased
Where Walt Whitman Would now if alive Weep over it’s reality And in it’s sorrow Walk away
Where Lincoln would Crawl up into a ball And simply
Choose to die
I Sing of A Nation of the Body dissected
By cannibals Who’ve erased all of It’s glory
And where there Is no honor, spark of Democracy, decency Or even electricity
R.M. ENGELHARDT 