At last poetry is in charge. From now on trains won’t run unless the word runs. Poem is the switch. If it’s not poetic, it’s stuck or stopped, nixed in mid-verse. The hearse stalled halfway to the funeral, the nurse freeze-framed in mid course. Poetry is the fifth force. The organizing principle of matter. To its gravity we surrender these dust motes: law, love, trust and — of course — our votes. “Yes, Poetry rules OK” we say. “Poetry is power.” But Plato interrupts, “Doesn’t power corrupt?”
So why were we surprised? Ideals are always compromised. But a deconstructionist in charge of housing? Is that wise? Then we had a dada foreign war to pay for: a surrealist air force, clear financial suicide! And now this new constitution of constraint — with just the vowel “I”? No wonder the dictionary’s been privatized. The word as cash: their new battle cry — slash. Modifiers/slash, articles/slash, apparatus of the sentence/slash/slash. Does that make sense? And now the scandals. The sonneteer claims innocence. But really, fourteen “gifts” to fourteen “men” fourteen times? And the fifteenth — a man named Mr. Orange — the minister of Rhymes, has just declared the penal code defunct for “lacking assonance.” So much for crime. I think you get the grift. Poetry’s into poetry. It’s self-interest, it’s only there to feather its nest. Why, it’ll sell the light right out from under those who write and then sit there in the dark, drinking their ink, singing Night? What night?