Sunday 26 November 2006

Poems about Poets

A Portrait

Myth as collective unconscious
a representer of mass culture
a parody of English realist novel
using stylized language
demonic vernacular urban

carnivalesque tolerant experimental prose
transcendence from mundane reality
through rebellious poetic words
scorning nationalism
scorning state and church
through celebration of the body

Peter Burton November 2006


"Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly " LH

Harlem Renaissance Man

Passionate clear humane
Harlem renaissance product
subtle and ironic
humorous and prolific

perceptive representer of black
musics' emotions
through immersion in African-American culture
crying loud against racist Southern " Justice"
with words as weapons
Scottsboro boys
hypocritical philanthropists
Jim Crow YMCAS
"Coloureds not admitted" signs
no part in 4th of July speeches

The "Weary Blues" of black mens' souls
"laughin' to keep from cryin' "


"The human soul entire, sqeezed
like a lemon or a lime drop by drop,
into atomic words" LH

Peter Burton November 2006

Imagine

Autonomous imaginative finely tuned visions
intensely lyrical intensely profound
confronting power with divided self

skeptical idealist urbane conversationalist
emotionally literate elevated prophet
agnostic ironic celebratory skeptic

Jupiter as Urizen
all reality a phantasmagoria

Imagination our eternal redemption

Peter Burton September 2006


Swansea Bohemian

Thirties Bohemian Celtic Bard
dedicated representer of human emotions
autodidactic original Swansea stylist
brought up within national oral tradition

surrounded by raging London Blitz fires
craving for mythical golden age past
with conflicting archetypal images
the old and the innocent
the " Loud Hill of Wales"

Peter Burton October 2006

' Mind forg'd Manacles '

Orc the enemy of
Urizen and Albions' Angel
fire consuming the tyrants' palaces

Orc rejoices at their shrieks and groans
despiser of all despotic oppressors
false hearted Enitarmon
undeclared Rintrach
jealous oppressors and cruel deceivers
ruling by fear and unjust laws

seflish envious brutal authority still
nothing prevents their howls of despair
in these visions of the 'cloudy heavens of Albion'

Peter Burton September 2006

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