Glass Scratching Repeatedly on Glass

Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem

The Modernists conspired for music, art

And poetry to be reduced right down,

Reduced from evening primrose to a fart,

Reduced till all of them became a clown

Like Edith Sitwell, then much worse, with slops

On canvas (Jackson Pollock), Pablo at

Misogynistic worst, perhaps, or glops

Of gesso (several in a frame), as splats

On art.  Composers turned to screech and whine

With clangs and bangs bashed in.  Barraqué’s blade

Jean Barraqué, Séquence (1950-1955), Joséphine Nendrick, Soprano – YouTube

Stabbed music, composition lacking spine,

Of music more like scrapes on glass by jade.

  The rest of us go forward writing rhyme

    And meaning — turning backs on Modern crime.

~ Phillip Whidden