Paper trail

There should be a way to recycle
all these tatty old verses;
littering the way like so many silk handkerchiefs
or neon nylon flowers, flourished
by some street magician for a moment
of wonder, before the effect wears off
and the eyes wander elsewhere

Maybe I should run, kicking them up
crisp as crepe, let the wind take hold
and carry them off to a new
and appreciative audience
There must surely be poetry deprivation
in some prosaic, purposeful place
where a little imagery or metaphor
-however clumsily wrought-
might be welcomed, valued even
stashed between the pages
of a technical manual and
traded in covert, furtive exchanges

They could, one supposes,
be composted, allowed to ferment
through some kind of magical metamorphosis
Veined with the sharpness of simile
the basic ingredients of alliteration
and assonance, combine and produce
an elixir of language, purified
packaged and sold
to connoiseurs of words

If left unread, they might go feral;
turn away from civilised language
and revert to a more primitive tongue
A scratch on a rock, a grunt
Is all they would need
to say, love; death; pain; joy;

They'd thrive, unedited, spreading like tickseed
A savage anti-syntax gone viral;
Control measures would (regretfully) be brought in
Loquacious literary critics would become heroes
and pretend not to take pleasure in the culling