A World Without Poetry Poem by David Vincent

Imagine a world where any and all forms of poetry were outlawed,
A place where little ruffians who rhyme spend the rest of their time locked away in a dark dripping cell,

Imagine a world where the heads of great poets decorate the walls all throughout the halls of the expensive and run down malls alike,

A world where anti-prose slogans cover everything from walls,
To floors,
To doors,
And memorials from wars,
Decorating every space in sight are banners of the antipoetic Government,
That is hell-bent on vanquishing emotion,
Expression and every single English lesson you have ever learned in school,
High schools burn in the unrecognizable reality,
Shakespeare,
Poe,
And Burn’s Legacies go up in flames,
The will be no wedding toasts,
Or prayers before a Sunday roast,
No ghost stories or great epics,
Like the Iliad and Beowulf,
The poets,
The artists
And the writers will be hunted all throughout the land,
Until Poetry and Prose,
Writing and reading,
Painting and drawing are all gone forever,

Imagine a world without music playing on the radio,
No rhyming,
No metre,
No verses,
No stanzas,
Or two black Cadillac’s,
No true love,
No morning breeze.