The Modern Poet
The modern poet, standing in the light of their forebears and future successors,
their inspirations and their muses, their mind panderings and simple pleasures,
formerly ready to speak to a page of paper with a pen or a pencil,
now typing for their lives on keyboards both real or pixelated,
ciphering their own lives into information as they understand it
or comprehend in gist and opportunity, always in the moment,
as the ideas of the writing pour themselves into phrases for consideration.
Sometimes accepted, otherwise rejected, determined by their chosen hand.
Some angered, some opposed with others natural and well meaning,
submerging in the quiet softness that the experience offers them,
all needing a place to be seen by a person with understanding,
so often, simply the poet themselves,
to fulfill what is otherwise not found in any other avenue of accomplishment.
The genre itself so mutated in varying attributes among those willing to write,
often confused with its cousin music,
for they are so very near and dear to each the other in so many ways,
yet solemnly different in so many others.
The modern poet, sitting on the edge of formal poetry and adventure forms
taking to prose or prolific speaking in order to communicate among themselves
how much the world has morphed into much of the same ole’ things,
only more gadgetry, since the inventors of writing itself
first tried making paper from tree leaves and other fibers,
soaking cotton in water then pressing it flat in order to smooth the surface
searching for paints, creating thick inks to cling to the paper when placed,
to record their own living in some fashion among the stars and the sun,
the mountains and the valleys, the young loves and melancholic elders,
with their gold or flaxen hair fading into the white and silver strands of starlight,
testifying to the longevity of their living, learning and knowledge
as their bright as day sun eyes dim, their worn hands still fit to entwine,
in narratives and in short form, breeding their method of annunciation and proclamation
all which are still there mingling among the idealism
of what must be born by an individual rather than an establishment
for the mass cultures still avidly affected by writing and reading.
The modern poet, hoping for some randomness without obligations or insistence
needing the personalized literature of their own minds, their private individuality,
only wanting to become a moment in time where the idea and the writing
manifested something pleasing to be viewed, simply by self, or possibly,
those who appreciate the modern poet for their attempts to keep alive the premise
and the appreciation of the genre, without the meat hooks of cancellation
sinking the claws of their praxis into innocent life to erode the fundamental goodness
that is modern poetry away from them forever.
Jade Dane Jaspers
