Poetic Delusions

Is there a point in symmetry,

all learned by heart, by rote?

Is it really true poetry,

when words are lain there smote?

These literary homilies,

with sibilants and similes,

so light and fleeting as a breeze:

not worthy of a quote.



Is it ever so rich with rhyme,

or just an illusion?

Is it really so sublime,

or wily delusion?

It is just a sly decoy,

each and every line a ploy,

playing your mind like a toy:

hiding my confusion.



Hidden burdens that I carry,

all condensed and congealed.

My pretense at thrust and parry,

depth is left, unrevealed.

Writing of angels and halos,

sketches of flowers and rainbows,

opera aria solos:

the poets brine concealed.



Hidden in the verdant sepals,

nothing is what it seems.

Where the stem kisses the petals,

the whispers become screams.

This prurient mania,

suppressed psychedelia,

an emotive paraplegia:

my violent dreams



Behind my curtain of black mists,

a ready charging ram.

All my sapient tongue twists,

are hiding my bedlam.

I screw with words like gigolos,

tossing around witty bon mots,

quick like twenty-one gun salvos:

all of it just a sham.



Is there a point in symmetry,

all learned by heart, by rote?

Is it really true poetry,

when words are lain there smote?

These literary homilies,

with sibilants and similes,

so light and fleeting as a breeze:

not worthy of a quote.