Light
When heavyweights say verse is light
They frequently intend a slight,
Suggesting it’s just tricks - not quite
The same thing that true poets write
(Like raw, pained comments on the plight
Of modern man, or urban blight,
In language dark as anthracite).
The grim and serious get it right,
Say critics who are erudite,
Implying thus that “light” means shite.
Okay - well, let me fly a kite,
Suggesting “serious” just might
At times mean seriously trite –
Like when some solemn acolyte
Of dark creeds mutters to invite
Ethereal spirits, but, despite
His best attempts, the mystic night
Stays undisturbed by ghost or sprite.
(He’s just a dud, to be polite,
Whose act is far from dynamite.)
Yet faking conjurers with sleight
Of crafty hand that fools the sight
Can rouse true wonder and delight,
Which the “real” magus, though he’s fright–
Fully sincere, can’t manage, quite.
I’d rank the trickster on a height
Above the dim Theosophite.
The insincere one gets it right –
Like poets whose technique is tight,
With lines that zing and rhymes that bite
And energy that can excite,
Who try to make what might, just might,
Maybe, if light enough, take flight.
George Simmers