Photo by Orkun Azap
When poets wrote with no strict rules
The books crawled out of darkness,
Great words emerged from stagnant pools,
Old trees forgot to hark less;
Vast hordes of crows blackened the sky,
Odd mistuned caws just slipping by,
The shadows sheltered untamed beasts,
All partisans of savage feasts,
Forsaken love rode crippled steeds,
Discarded lovers noting misdeeds,
Thus poets wrote and bled their verses,
Defying the rules with their stifling curses.
When painters sketched their first portraits
The canvas blushed then smiled,
Colors seeped under locked iron gates,
Abandoned forms haphazardly piled;
Old warriors exchanged weapons for brushes,
Fording those streams where inspiration gushes,
The silence turned witness against savage passion,
Disrupting the orders they wanted to ration,
Grey landscapes were crossed and then Picassoed,
Lush gardens cultivated from seeds they sewed,
Thus painters sketched and bled their first tableaux,
Uncovering that liberty, every artist must know.
When songsters sang with rough-hewn voices
The anthems raised the curtain,
Sharp notes betrayed how music rejoices,
Solid scales all left uncertain;
Lowly cattle stopped waifs with their lowing,
Sky-blue gaze taut as tears were growing,
The wind rustled leaves and rattled cages,
Ancient boughs groaning with respect for lost ages,
Forgotten choirs gathered before one congregation,
Random scores achieving a new saturation,
Thus songsters sang and bled their fresh psalms,
Whipping up the storm, no silence ever calms.
When lovers loved before the first flowers
The seeds were spread with no care,
Wicked roots imposed new limits and powers,
Selfish phantoms unwilling to share;
Boundless meadows revealed that all flesh is grass,
Fertile soil recording all those who might pass,
The bodies and limbs portrayed mythical creatures,
Nymphs and sprites cavorting with ecstatic features,
Fading warmth was revived then drunk as a promise,
Wandering souls reunited in a first savage kiss,
Thus lovers loved and bled their own truth,
Scorning defunct wisdom as they writhed in pure youth.
The Author
Peter H. Dietrich is a reporter/filmmaker/spinner-of-tales originally from Northampton, in the UK, and has been traveling the world non-stop for over 40 years, writing non-stop all the way in different forms. He has traversed the Sahara, been to the Amazon rain forest, and spent four seasons in the French Alps. He has lived in Morocco, France, Portugal, Spain, Germany, Poland, and Brazil. Eleven years living in Ukraine led to eleven amazing summers exploring in the Crimea, and his films were among the first to extoll the virtues of that extraordinary place, before the political upheavals. He is currently living in Bulgaria, working on 2 musicals, one a comedy, the other a tragedy. The musical-comedy has also been published as a children’s storybook, with original illustrations. He has self-published 2 volumes of poetry, FORTY DAYS & FORTY NIGHTS, and INBETWEEN BEFORE AND AFTER.
Peter H. Dietrich