Inkling Poem by Lucius Sulla

Tell me, o dilettantes,

And august savants,

Of your natural urge,

And not so this purge

Which in itself, after all

Hides thy vanity, a pall

Writing, believing that on the looms of time,

You will cogitate beyond this mortal crime.

Wherefore thou discerns progress,

From sage duress to wickedness.


There are many, among those,

Whose musings on paper propose,

To either define the world,

Or themselves, hurled,

Into a mass of such language,

For which they claim to engage,

Believing to judge by inception and intuition,

Rather than form, substance and conception.

Disharmony, injustice, religion, chance,

Naivete: innocence in innocent parlance.


Is this really the drink,

These claims to think,

Or flights of fancy gain'd,

By thy lungs' hope stain'd?

No. Nefas. Nada. Nein.

What follows this wine,

If not a dullened mull,

Is the scientific consul,

Of a million savage definitions,

All of whom lack true intentions.


There is yet another sort,

Who paint in glorious retort,

Themes of what in our ego,

We destroy, and evolve, lo!

At the expense of elements

That form, for sure, our contents:

Earth, water, fire, fell air,

Chaos to them all foreswear,

And this, my son, is that vast lee,

For magick, superstition and fantasy.


Down in this deep, dark world of words,

And old tongues, festering in limbic herds,

There is, in that tiny corner, above your eyes,

And that most primitive of tracts, smell besides,

A calm reason not to reason,

But seek a journey: Treason

To many, atavism to gregarious some.

When words fail, and opinions mum,

Then alone could winters see the sun,

And the summer welcome icicles spun.


So, me fellow wanderer,

Withhold thy pen, and err:

So that the wieght of consonants

And alphabets, their adjutants

Far from twist and compel

Thee to thyself repel;

But bring to light that need

Which fuels thy crucial greed

To seek the feel of this ink and feather

Suspending impulse, and a logical weather.