Andrew Apel

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There Is A Kind Of Poetry I Like

There is a kind of poetry I like
That those who write poetic manifestos do not write
It forces me to find a clue
And bids me understand the few
Hard words it uses
And it loses
Something in translation
Into language that the masses
Learned in classes one through five
(or eight now, if it is a few years later) how
To write it I don't know myself
But there are still a few souls left
Who feel the theft
Of words
That trickle past each other
Making mind and tongue their lovers
Much like music
Hovers
Between sense and thought.

The last forgotten grammophone
Survivor of some age of stereo
Long past now
Wheezes
Out some strains of counterpoint
That pleases
None save one
Old frog-voiced almost tone-deaf
Listener
Who tries to croak
Along in tune
But knows
That with him soon
Will pass
The understanding of concertos and toccatas
For more enlightened thoughts have ruled
That twisty melodies and fugues
And such
Discriminate
And make some feel like fools
And which
Is needless
In this day and age of readily available masonry.

And so his dying strains of music
Break the concentration
Of the local Philharmonic
Banging rocks together
For the sonic
Tactile pleasure
That it brings.

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