In Response To The Imagist: Poem by Walt Ostrander

Sing spontaneous there...then gone.
Conduct your symphonies in blue.
Red, or Yellow; with dignity being frequently alone…
The Violin! grOW, play sweet notes, sweet and violent notes!
So as a flame flickers and sweeps the melodic metal,
The resonant wood; Oh how it contours to the very shape.
How it dances; burning the patient audience of the early man.
How in such violent patience, it conceives such colorful beauty.

Destroy in your time a holy realm. A cathedral not in your name,
but in the name of the pitiful, miserable, lowly spark that
woke you from the mundane. Destroy what is put before you
And command all that remains on its knees in blue.
Devour and conquer in Red. In Ares’ name show mercy to none,
and become yourself; Red.
In yellow devastate the soul and become the antagonist, vanquishing
hope and love. Oh how the weak cling to such material…
such worthless possessions.

To have lived so short, your time was well-spent.
To have answered a flame,
Is to become yourself.
To reach your pinnacle of existence.
To have scarred the world,
Or to have grown it anew.