Poetry Belongs To The People Poem by Mary Champion

Poetry once belonged to the people,
preserved in the people's tongue.
The perfect way to help them remember
the legends of how they'd begun.
In the distant, pre-literate ages
no one could write down the words,
no-one could read on yellowing pages
the tales that their ancestors heard.

But poets recited the ancient legends,
they told of the demons and gods.
They told the best jokes and taught the lessons
and everyone hung on their words.
Poetry spoke to the heart of the people,
gave meaning to all that was known.
The masters of rhyme had a perfect retrieval
of the sagas of ages long gone.

Now poetry's lost to pretentious performers
whose aim is to cloud and confuse.
Metaphors plucked from the esoteric
and praised just for being abstruse. -
Performers whose aim is to baffle the people,
to make them believe they are dumb.
If they don't get the hang of this grandiose babble
such poets believe they have won.

Smug and superior, churning out verses
that no normal mind could unpick,
they put people off of a once proud tradition
to be mocked and discarded as thick.
So let in the light, take it back to the people
desist from these arcane harangues.
For what is the point of your public narration
if scarcely a soul understands?