He conjures up ideas
He tantalizes emotions
He’s the evocative straddling of punctuations and tenses
Summoning metaphors
Riding consonants, pulsing rhymes
Making reciters talk fast, talk slow, mess up grammar, not conform to language structures
When he allows you to anatomize and internalize the complexity of his elements
He flows out as natural as air breathing

***

He never ages
He’s the voice proclaimed: “let there be …” and there was and still is
He’s the sound of ancestors in the lyrics of ancient orators and storytellers
He’s the polyrhythmic compositions of music
He’s the language of drums ricocheting off the songs of pharaohs and the reasonings of philosophers
He’s in the hymns of the rain, the mystique of the rainbow
He’s the beating of a timeless art

***

He defies hypocrisy and excuses
If your words are hollow and your game weak, he’ll retreat
If you can’t ride literary ecstasy, he’ll draw back
For he knows only inauthenticity can displace him
If you’re true to the ebb and flow of rhythm and rhymes, though
If you can free flow, release conformity
He’ll come along for that Coolio fantasy “slide-slide-slippity-slide” ride

***

I’ll never ever leave or deceive him
He’s my present, my past, my destiny
He’s forever a mystery
He’s my love oratory
He is Poetry

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After-word: Long before the written text, poetry existed. It was the reciting to memorize genealogy, laws and culture. It was the verbal incantation of hymns, love songs and chants. It was the conveyor of prayers, stories, historical accounts, and instructions for everyday living. Long before colonial conquest—from the Nile to the Volta River valleys, from Pyramid to Griot court writings—poetics were the elements of political, educative, spiritual and entertainment ceremonies. In this piece I aim to capture the timelessness of poetry, personified.

©2022 DeeMin All Rights Reserved

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In creative solidarity, Dee