The Poet

The Poet

What has happened to our language?
What are you talking about?
Flip on the T.V., put a CD in, or log online
Yes, what is your point?
English, that is my point
No one is really using English!
Have you gone crazy?
What do you want them to use, Chinese?
No, what I mean is… few are using the language to its fullest
Oh to see the potential of English
Everyone today is a reductionist
Using the simplest most thought-less language possible
Not only that, people only speak of the surface,
They don’t have words to use or topics to speak about,
We are becoming thinking creatures terrified of thinking!
What on earth are you talking about?
The shallowness of our uneducated ignorant speech,
Where has the wisdom gone from this place?
Where are the T. S. Eliots chiding our generation?
Where are the C. S. Lewises combining rational and imagination for a defense?
Our vocabularies are shrinking
And I’ve only read pages of ‘Ulysses’!,
Yes, yes I’m beginning to see what you are saying
I mean… we’re rebels
We’re American Protestants and rebelling is sort of our heritage
Now were rebelling against whatever is left
Our language, logic, our faith, our institutions, anything we can
Perhaps this makes us more powerful but less civilized,
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying
We’re becoming, or are, a pagan empire
In rebelling against everything we’ve stupefied ourselves
And become tools, puppets, prepared for the ultimate deceivers and oppressors,
Yes, we think we’re free in our rebellion
But in reality we’ve enslaved ourselves
And we point the finger, snaring down
Upon those who want us to be free
Yes, what shall we do about this?
We must return to the old disciplines of learning and praying
Not imitation but rather as genuine truth seekers
We must throw off our complacency and seek truth
If we do not we’ll soon be like the apes
Beating our chests, spouting barbaric groans
We are nearly there
So, we must return to using our full capacity