Some Old Guy Named Keats Poem by Laurence Overmire

Some old guy named Keats
Keeps singing in my ear
Lilting melodies of long lost lore

While Byron and Shelley
Croon their bitter
Sweet harmonies of love

Rappin' on my shotgun sensibilities
Modern improprieties shod with lust and gore and
Bloody insatiable war

Hard-assed verbiage too rank
To hold a purity that harkens
To a simpler time

A simpler place
A simpler way
Of being

But don't let me go, boys
The tuning in and out of syncopated time
Spans eons of dreaming nights

Till a new heart burns with the hearing
Of an ancient voice
In an ever-ripening world.


(Previously published in Art Villa, Aug.1999)