©2003 Ross E. Lockhart

I read somewhere that poetry
is dying on the vine.

That the quantity of people who read it, x
is slightly less
than the number of those who write it, y

x < y

That good ol’ boy Joe Sixpack,
he don’t get it.
Simile and Metaphor,
Measured Rhyme and Meter.

Huh? Them’s purty words, but wha’d yew say?

He’ll be damned
if he’ll read it

May I suggest a new approach?

That we craft, in simple language, lines that Joe can understand.

A poetry for Unwashed America
Songs of football, NASCAR, and pro wrestling

Odes for the cops and jocks that beat me down
Couplets for the gamers in their rooms

Limericks for the C-students
Rhymes for the Wal-Mart greeters
Verses for the villeins

Epics for the assholes
Sonnets for the SOBs

Why’s it got to be so convoluted?
Why do we have to bury things in words?

Remember Casey at the Bat,
or Tyger Tyger burning bright?
The People, Yes, The People?

Mundane blue-collar language, sure
But haunting still in its simplicity.

Not encumbered with symbolic code
Not trigonometry.