Alfred Behrmann - Ars Poetica

Alternative For goodness' sake,
Plead his friends,
Cut out the razzmatazz.
Make a point and get it across.
Use slang. And put some jargon
Into your stuff. All right, say some,
The keener diagnosticians,
Perhaps it's not the gimmicks,
But where's your bite,
The cerebral edge, there's no
Dialectic. What to do?
The poet wonders. Strip
The Muse, put her on a Suzuki,
Make her sputter Hegelian quirks
Like all the rest?
Or shall I whistle Lillibullero
And gae to my Anna? Disquisition on Matters of Principle Later
He got his own back,
Obliquely, in some of his verse:
A mistake his friends, at one
With his critics, condemned.
Although, on further reflection,
A number (of both parties) agreed that
From a mere poetological viewpoint
It didn't, perhaps, matter, in principle,
Whether
But rather
And that
If Drab Prospect These voices, proceeding - whence else? - from the poet's marasm,
Keep up their susurrus, annoying the Muses
With their dissensions and fuss, obscuring Apollo
With interminable logodaedal mist.

Alfred Behrmann

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