2025 NaPM 2 April

[brynmawr1]

I am with Percy on this one

Percy died at 29 in 1822
having buried three children
a lover
maybe dogs and cats too.
And so he knew, he knew
about the human condition,
the wandering Jew,
the layabout minstrel,
more than you.

I’m with Percy
that poetry grows on you -
fresh young saplings
become churchyard yews.

That poetry is magic.
Whether read on a mountain height
where the snows are like white
blank pages. Or by sages
old in song and story
seeking the flame
and some, the fame
of hermit glory.
Poetry is magic
on the lips of a tragic
Romeo. The vaulty heaven,
he says. The unleavened
bread eaten, at dawn
an unrested Mary.

There is poetry
and poetry is fraud
it indicates a god
behind the machinations.
Perhaps not too good
with public relations -
look at the rapes, the murders, the violence!

But in the faint traces
of perfection in the stars.

Nothing should make sense
yet here we are.

There is no magic
but in the spaces
where there’s silence.

beautiful piece, Busker.  Last stanza, particularly.  Worth keeping around and workshopping.

---

As did the sun herald the seasons
by every passage through the ecliptic,
so did the stars by their aureola
fashion the psyche, or so went the laws
held with conviction even by Newton,

likewise the birthright of Galileo,
Kopernik, Kepler, and all the lesser
lights who then laid, through blind observance,
guileless conjecture, and dilligent math
paths to transform heavenly wisdom

first to mere magic, robbed of all logic,
then to a con: signs without planets
houses abandoned, destiny's arrows
now a mere paycheck, as fits the guest's mood.

Bravo River!  Another worth workshopping.

---

We Burn Women, Not Witches

Vaccines, not too hard to understand.
Like a cheat sheet on a college exam

giving you the edge on that deadly
pop quiz.  Cause you know, right?

That professor always out to get you
to study and learn; prepare yourself

for the next final exam. There is no magic,
just biology and common sense.