What is a poem but a collection of words that rhyme, or don’t, perhaps in stanzas, or not. A genre of metaphors like word-salad gin, all swaying and thriving off rhythmical sin, and meaningful sentiments long crafted in. Nostalgia for those, lost in the past; yet new-guard, fast, hip-fired sonnets with endings that break from puerile convention. They are the newly chosen.
The Betjeman meter and time makes them gasp and heave; pitying souls that scorn the classics and view with disdain, the steady and illustrative lilting and sway of his sentimental verse. He was once a master, conjurer, raconteur and songster; an amalgam of thoughts painted in phrases…to colour and decorate the facades of your mind; silent words etched onto your memories by the beating heart of the lyrically obsessed.
Come back, return to reign awakened, conscious with momentous resurrection of the foundations, the forgotten songs, the shattered giants. Awaken, take heed of the ones who wrote the book, each chapter and verse, the founders, the heroes. Rise and return from cultural ground zero; for what is a poem but a collection of words that rhyme (and if not, perhaps they should).
