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The Road Less Traveled  by John Andersen

John Andersen...Baja poet and Renaissance Man

The Road Less Traveled

With a liberal flair that I’ll term laizzez faire
Just prior to the turn of millennium
‘Pon the scene ‘peared a beast, whose works to say least
Were unfit for the forum’s proscenium

Now I hear you ask why I’m calling to task
these latter day laymen of letters
‘Cause with coffee house sandals and hep hippie handles
They appear not a peer to their betters

And here if I’m hard on that gauche avant garde
That has spouted from dais and podium
I make no apologies their pathetic anthologies
In my odea manifest odium

The sum stock and store of the poets of yore
Were lines that were cadent and metric
While a modern endeavor is expected to never
Be less than line catalectic

And to say naught of timing let’s talk about rhyming
As well an ideal they refute
Penning lines of one word, Bardic beauty?  Absurd!
“I sat on a hill” ain’t that cute?

I’ll tell you my friend here’s a point I’ll defend
It’s the weaving of words that’s the magic
I find hard to endure self-professed prosateur
Reading rattle that borders on tragic

A verse has my vote if I kin key and note
And the sharps and the flats and the drummings
Not some pendulous pace typed in cute lower case
Giving meaning anew to “short-cummings”

I’d rather hear Poe weave his words round a crow
With intuit of tempo and tongue
Or my ears hear the sea take his Anabelle Lee
Feel the pealing of bells as they’re rung

My poets write lyrics with trochees and pyrrics
Lending art to each part as it’s pieced
Know their reader is heeding that honing and kneading
Or should be, and iamb at least

Whilst far flung from the masters these pedantic poetasters
Make mock of the men whom God gifted
Their efforts inure our pursuit of the pure
Noting not that in them it’s been lifted

Hear now upon closing, the point that I’m posing
I’ll sum up with a quote of our season:

‘Tis the truth, not a lie, the road less traveled by is usually so for a reason'