Post-Modern Poetry Poem by Shalom Freedman

The post-modern poem is the poet's surprise-
It has no agenda but its own interpretation-
It reads the ‘expressive I' as an infinite longing of the soul
To know and be known-

It writes out of many different places
But finds it difficult to call one its home-
It has many names and voices
But none speaks with an authoritative rhythm -

It is only its own alone home
And so I writing it know
It will not be found in me by those who write it as their own-

Chaos, perhaps, is its signature,
And loss of all the ancient rhythms and forms-
It wants to wander where it will as it does -

But I, I thinking back to what we were
And remembering years of reading others
Know too its voices are many even within the single self-

There is no ‘modern' anymore and no ‘post- modern' either
In the age where everything is accessible
And all is easily found and communicated
The single soul's signature cannot mean a name is real -

Only where all effort is and fails
Only where nobody really is
Only where many write and no one can really read
Perhaps beyond this
Beyond post- modern poetry
This poem too will teach Poetry how to live.