The Exalted Ones

They meet in the back rooms of coffee houses,
wine bars and bookstores.  Some send their stuff
to the magazines.  They write poems about rejection,
isolation, the tragic human condition, failed love.

They drag their friends along to ensure applause
and run up the flag declaring 'POETRY NIGHT'.
Organizers claim poetic awareness their intent,
but no one comes to the stage holding 

a god-damn unity candle for their beloved audience, 

even the ones who preach Love and Peace, 

who cry for change.  They, most of all, do it for the spotlight, 

for a chance to be heard and understood.

Shouting lyrics over cigarette smoke and cappuccino
machines, much of it is soft, overly-garnished
treatment of standard themes, else unintelligible,
angst-riddled banter.

Professor observes from the corner table, applauding,
half-sincere.  He also writes poetry, a good deal
more carefully.  His collection of haiku is for sale

next to the pastry display.

Afterwards, they congratulate and embrace
one another as new hopes are raised and new poems
find their way to the desks of magazine editors.
I pick up the magazines.  Nothing happens.

Has exalted poetry gone the way of the Aztecs?
Where is our Whitman?  Our Rimbaud?
Our howling Ginsberg?  How I long to taste
the exquisite madness of tyrannous, unbridled souls,

for a righteous voice to rise up and torch this
complacent landscape, deliver us from sedate,
coffee-house prose, weakling academics absent grit
or vision, and tired, angry verse such as this.