Banish its echo, first, to memory;
then deconstruct it in rhymed poetry:
choose this, rather than be further annoyed;
follow the most practical strategy
for disposition of its bold persistence
to claim what it can never have---existence.
It is an emptiness, a vacancy,
lacking both sense and spirituality;
at most, a shadow that cannot assail
the balance of your equanimity.
Its shrill performance is a comic ruse;
nor need you fear that it can wreak abuse.
It is an absence nothing needs to fill,
a nervous twitch that will, someday, lie still.
Starward
Author's Notes/Comments:
A rather recent event called to mind an incident, or string of incidents, that began on September 9th, 1976, during freshman orientation at my college. During that process, I met a fellow freshman who claimed to be a poet. In every encounter---either with me, or that I witnessed---through the next four years, he always announced that he was a poet, but produced very little to demonstrate this. During the middle term of our junior year, in a playwriting class, his play was one of several selected for the classmembers to perform. I was not in the class, but he invited me to attend the performance. Although I was not asked my opinion on the quality of his play, nor did I feel the need to express it (as this would have been both intrusive and inappropriate), I think it should be expressed today. After all, ain't this a site in which we are not only free, but also encouraged, to write any damn thing that might come to mind? Ain't it?
BTW, although I have looked up his name through multiple search engines since my first participation in the internet in 2001, I have never seen a poem by him, a book listed at the various bookseller, or even a mention on an alumni website. He has fallen into obscurity; but, aw shucks, I am still here.
