Lead Poets Society / by Brian Kunde

Lead Poets Society
by Brian Kunde

Spin out the long cast.
The circling verse takes the hook.
The lead brings it down.

Teaching fish to fly,
We wish them tethered in place.
The hobbles crash them.

Patching leaden verse:
To have it take wing in flight,
Make the sinkers floats.

Contemplating lead
In the making of balloons:
A weighty matter.

The trial balloons,
Released in hope to the air,
Like stones drop to earth.

The poems are launched.
Hope wings aloft. The verses
Sink like lead balloons.

Belabored, bladdered verse:
Up it goes and down it comes.
Something’s not working.

The bladder, though round,
Soars not—perhaps because it’s
Filled with shot, not air.

Verses autopsied.
Lead-poisoned, pinions broken.
Time to reassess.

Close the aerodrome.
Bank the forges. Stop. Think of
Something seasonal.

* * * * *

Lead Poets Society

from Adrift in the Wreckage : Poems, 1st ed., Dec. 2011.
Earlier versions of stanzas 5-6 were posted to
the Yahoo group d for de Camp, Feb. 4, 2010;
earlier versions of stanzas 4 and 8 were posted
to the same group, Feb. 10, 2010.

1st web edition posted 7/25/2013.