Smoke and Wordless Witchdoctors

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

Escape from logic sometimes comes through art.

Perhaps art came before our tongues made sense

In poetry or language, at the start

Of humans being human, breaking dense

Brain barriers, outflowing into mind.

Stick art on cave walls came so soon that we

Might not have had the sounds.  Our humankind

Might only have imagined mindlessly

(Almost) the notions of our language, song

And Homer’s speech.  Yet music must have come

With paintings on those later walls along

With magic, gods — the total human sum.

  But first came common sense.  The mystics came

    With yearning.  They imagined humans’ aim.

~ Phillip Whidden