Strunk And White In Hell
an anarchist’s style guide…
Poems are liquid prose. Prose insists. Poems plead.
Kale tastes best in darkness. Residue of texture.
Texture makes the text. Don’t dress it up.
I is romantic vestige. Deport it. Feel the freedom.
Irony a literate decadence. Stick to sarcasm. Common voice.
Drumbeat of iambs in veins. Just the facts, Ma’am.
Edgy as opposed to hard. Violent refusal to respond.
Adjectives limited. Adverbs useless. Nouns just sit.
Ah, but verbs. Verbs as we are. We are verbs. Creating.
Other parts, only utilitarian. Sequence of composition.
Words in a row marching like soldiers to certain death.
Metaphors compressed as diamonds. Regal and rusted.
The clock’s face reveals nothing. Blank chronology.
Humor provides shelter. Lear on the moor. Fool.
Lines in a stanza remain lines. Mere artifice.
Love is in and out of every door. Root of desire.
Say what you must as you must. Shout if you must.
Take whatever you like. Make it new. Make it new.
Feel noose around neck. Have the last word. Anyway.
This is one of a number of poems that I originally published when I was new to Medium. As a result, relatively few people saw them. I am reposting some of them in the hope that they will be seen by a larger audience than I had then. mce
