Why I Hate Poetry, But Love Opera
To me, throwing words into a washing machine is what poetry is all about –
A blue sock tangled in the drum with Michael Jordan’s underwear
Makes the same sense as the poet’s phrase of ‘a‘willowy tree near a bowl of sauerkraut’.
I have no patience to unravel the muse’s mystery, nor do I care.
The maid can sort the things that come out of the washer, she’s paid for her time.
I, other the other hand, have more important fish to fry than to bother with the mundane.
The poet’s message is hidden by obtuse verbiage, words used only in Chaucer’s prime.
If there is something that I need to hear, say it quickly and without some fancy refrain.
Let your “Yes” be “Yes” and it not be couched in vague letters smelling of flowers and grass.
Mr. Poet, do you not have something you need to do – like getting a life,
Rather than scouring through Wordsworth, Frost, and some fool rhymster named Marvin Glass?
Could it be that your passion for obscurity is the reason you have no life but much strife?
So fare thee well, Master of double talk, I take my leave of thee, going to another Land.
My ship sails for Italy, to Milan, to the Opera houses of deserved fame,
Where voices reach heaven with words I can neither pronounce nor even understand,
All singing poetical stanzas that put even your words of enchantment to shame.
How is it, you ask, that I cannot tolerate poetry in words of my own tongue,
And yet claim to be enthralled by poetry sung to words I know not, a foreign choice?
My passion comes from a depth found not in words, but in sound wondrously sung,
Here is found a transcendent magnificence that flows only from the human voice.
It matters not that the operatic script reads, “Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, I am spaghetti for you.”
Tho sung in Italian and not understood, this is no barrier to the sounds of great love.
My soul soars listening to golden voices harmonizing with elegant violins, a flute, or a cello.
The poet tells but the story, but it is the voices that echo the joy that comes only from above.
So there it is, my soul laid bare: in heaven do you think it will be poetry and tea that is the delight,
Or will it be hymns sung with great choirs surrounding the King, voices ringing?
Songs of praise glorifying the Great Composer will be heard, morning, noon, and night,
With many such as Verdi, Puccini, Bizet, and Donzetti, all leading the glorious singing.
Hallelulah!