Anyway, Dewey Lynne is having a rest. I do not even have a bit of a note scratched for the next Dewey Lynne Bugler story. I am not sure where I am going to go with that character next. To prison? To the events that led to prison? If any of my gentle readers out there have a suggestion about what you would like to see and hear from Dewey Lynne, please let me know. I have a couple of options in my head, but I would be most interested in know what you would like to read about our humble narrator.
I also have a picture for you this time. This is the sky reflected in a pond at the Fulton Country fairgrounds. I think I took this back in December. I haven't seen many photographic moments lately. Maybe, when I start walking later in the evening again, I will get more sunsets.
So, I haven't written a poem in a while, and I was thinking that I might. As I have written before, maybe so many times that it has become boring, I get my best inspiration from old poems that I wrote. I ran across this one in looking at some old notes. There are several versions of this poem running around out there in different places, but I have made some significant revisions to the poem though the topic is one that I return to quite often. Enjoy!
Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Written Word
(An Imitation of the style of Wallace Stevens)
I.
Amid myriad archaic symbols
And mystic runes,
The only reliable source
Is the written word.
II.
My mouth expresses
Three idioms.
Each a phrase
Written in three words.
III.
The written word flutters in stormy breezes.
Cheap ink stains cheap paper.
IV.
A man and his notions
Are one.
The written word and a man’s inspired designs
Are one.
V.
Which do I like best?
The thrill of the initial thought
Or the poetry that it stirs.
The written word trapped on paper
or the idea bouncing in my head.
VI.
Mildew stains the ancient book
With rusty brown triangles.
The dim scratches of the written word
Cannot be deciphered.
The spontaneous emotion
Is lost in distressed letters
And bleached black lines.
VII.
Oh, loud men of podcasts,
Why do you shout your propaganda?
Do you not know that the written word
Will spin your half-truths
Into dewy webs that will
Expose your lies in the sunlight?
VII.
I watch young people dance together
With desire in their hearts,
But I know
That if not for the written word,
They must sing the song alone.
IX.
When the written word is scorned,
The ignorant man
Returns to violence.
X.
When the truth of the written word
Is outlined clearly on white paper,
The dolt who continues to doubt
Puts faith in his own foolishness.
XI.
He lived in a river valley
In a house of hardened mud.
When his home washed away
In the annual flood,
He made another of baked clay
And offended the written word.
XII.
Because you are reading,
The written word is living.
XIII.
Time passes without cessation,
Yet my life is complication
And deviation.
The written word stands
As a testament to my sitting still
For one moment in Time.
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