How to Dance to Byron

...that would be clever, I agree.

Clever indeed, old chap. Clever to the highest degree.

The problem is, though, that so often I feel so clever

Too clever, even.

Too clever for my own good.

I set off on prosaic expeditions with the best of intentions

a starting point, a jump off.

A skewed view of something banal or a mundane take on something

more than trivial

But then come the metaphors, piling on top of the irony

and the self-assured subversion I consider "artistic integrity"

Planning and preparation are the keys to a successful journey

or so we're led to believe.

I set off on prosaic expeditions from the seat of my pants, though,

does that make me ill-prepared, unplanned, and unreliable?

Probably?

~

So, I'll inhale the world's breath and exhale

the Contained Observations too (CO2) abstract to process.

Instead I wonder

if being deliberate will produce something beautiful,

or will it, as is my concern, transform my unique art

into something you might expect to see in the journal

of a 12-year-old.

~

One of my favourite bits in my favourite film about

what poetry is and what it should be

where, after reading the odious "Introduction to Poetry"

Robin Williams' character, Mr. Keating, calls the author

Mr. J Evans Pritchard, excrement.

"We're not laying pipe! We're talking about poetry."

"How can you describe poetry like American Bandstand?"

Have you ever tried to dance to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage?

~

If you've read it, you'll know what I mean—the irony won't be

lost(like this word from its line, like this line from its)

~

If you've yet to read it, you should take a few hours out and

lose yourself in the artistry and beauty of one of the true greats

I contend and act with contention to the reverie afforded the

Romantics, when I am a student of Shelley, Mary, at the very least

Choice words I have for Wordsworth, though I still marvel at a good

rhyme.

~

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is, after all, a pilgrimage—a journey

in search of something...

after years of debauchery and slovenliness

I sucked hard on my tongue to deliver that

word

But his journey, Childe Harold's pilgrimage, is

One I can relate to, one we can all relate to

Clever,

Possibly?

~

The deliberate versus the accidental hasn't even been discussed

when planning and preparation stifle freedom

no amount of scripting, programming

can help—

who really wins?

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: For reference: "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: A Romaunt is a long narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron. The poem was published between 1812 and 1818. Dedicated to "Ianthe", it describes the travels and reflections of a young man disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looking for distraction in foreign lands." It's also "an expression of melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras."