Where's the Rage?

Where's the Rage?

(For Lawrence Ferlinghetti)

Poetry is screaming into the wind,

a cry from within the void,

a crash of thunder from

nightmarish clouds on high,

the sound reverberating

from the core of all

which lies below.

You cannot pinpoint

the source of the dissonant

voice,

for it has always been

within everything that is

or forever shall be,

kept busy clicking a 

Morse code symphony

from percussive typewriter

keys,

scattering endless words

into the alleyways of the mind,

a proverbial passing of

the torch from 

generation to generation,

a voice of reason calling

out from the streets of confusion

like a single streetlamp

to light the new way.

Poetry is a cracked tea

cup overflowing with

subversive solutions:

a chamomile canto,

a herbal haiku,

an oratory oolong

dipped in Kerouac's

Kombucha.

Poetry is a smoking

ashtray in a darkened

room,

one puff through dirty

fingers is all it takes 

to rearrange the shadows 

in a midnight dance.

Poetry is as curious 

as a kitten stalking an

insect no one else seems to see.

Poetry is a flooding creek

bed after an angry 

afternoon storm,

boiling over with the

muddy waters of time.

Poetry is a key hidden

in the bottom drawer which

can unlock the hidden

rooms of rhyme.

Poetry is the voice

of dissent rising from

the rotting baseboards of

the slums of complacency.

Poetry is a middle finger to

those who demand order

and single file lines,

bigger wars,

louder engines,

better bombs,

smarter phones and

anything else meant

to distract us from the

larger picture being

etched in the sands 

all around us.

Poetry is a great 

crying out in the name

of loving whoever you want,

being as weird as you feel,

of living off the grid

and in the now,

of never taking the talking

heads at mere face value,

of realizing that even the

Statue of Liberty has lost

her looks and her meaning,

of knowing that the 

:"Land of the Free"

only exists in quotation

marks,

of never giving up the fight

never mind the stakes,

of never allowing yourself

to be completely comfortable

knowing that that is just another

form of giving up.

No,

poetry is knowing that so long

as there are things needing

to be said you can never

rest on your laurels or 

the give in to nostalgia,

you must always scream 

your verses into the stars,

be a revolutionary of

the heart,

soul and mind,

for change starts

on the page,

but it ends in the sky.