***This has been a work in progress for a while now, due to time constraints and a bothersome belief in perfection that I'm still trying to shake. Installment(s) will follow if you've enjoyed it, but be patient***




In Search of Poetry: An Odyssey

Book I

I left. It seems so long ago,
And now, like then, I do not know
The answers to my many questions,
If you can help, I’ll take suggestions.

I’d thought I’d had a simple mission,
Wanting neither fame nor fortune; nuclear fission
Hadn’t even crossed my mind,
The only thing I’d hoped to find,
Was not the way that stars unwind
Or how the ancient kings once dined…
Rather, where had all the poets gone?
I’d searched all night, I’d searched ‘til dawn
Finding nothing; save some broken verse,
The message garbled, the contents terse:

“We’ve searched the land
And scoured the sea,
Bled the sky for poetry…
But no skill found, we’ve gone to see
Where Talent’s gone and words flow free.

Look to the heavens!
We’ve left some scattered stars behind,
And though bright, they can be seen by blind
Ones only. Have faith,
Let the sightless guide you
Through these dark times,
Without our rhymes beside you.”

At this stark and sudden revelation,
My heart skipped two full palpitations,
And inclining now towards inebriation
I gasped, I shuddered, hemmed and hawed…
Could this be true?
Had we been abandoned by our wordsmith gods,
Left to comb the earth through clods
And clumps of works churned out
By sordid sods whose writings waver
When they should stand stout?

Breathe in… breathe out.

‘Tis only now I can admit
I cursed the day my soul was lit
And given spark;
Not only were these times dark
And hopeless seeming,
Rather… the night was teeming
With countless millions lost,
Searching for a torch no longer gleaming.

At this bleak sight I realized,
That I, like them still had my eyes
And could not see the way to go…
So without pause or hesitation,
Perhaps an act of desperation
That you, gentle reader
I hope never understand…
I took a pen of unknown brand
And gouged my eyes;
With my own two hands…

At that, the journey began.

And so…
In the days and months that follow suit,
I’ll speak to you of Gargus roots,
Of Marms and Jimes (and a man named Klewts)
All discovered while in close pursuit
Of poetry.

Brave through words
What I went through blind,
But know right now that what you’ll find,
Are stories sad, the morals true,
Learn from what I say to you…
For what be the point if the meaning’s gone?
I say to you:

Read on… read on.

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