Happy new year!
Zelda's Inferno exercise: write the poem that gets you disqualified from consideration as poet laureate
"considering the poet laureate"
the state is the opposite -
the polar opposite, the antithesis, the additive inverse, the eternal opponent -
of poetry
it was the state that put Thoreau into a jail;
it was poetry that kept him free inside those walls
music art and poetry can
only free a soul
only bring us closer to
that angelic state
that bodhisattva state
where every man and woman and child and dog
knows and acts the lovingkindesswisdom way
and what need then for guns of governence?
what purpose then to the state's violent threats?
poetry steals Caesar's thunder from him
makes empty the angry threats of kings
when every person knows their gods directly
there's no place left for fear of church or state
so, no:
propaganda is not the poet's place
non servium