Poets and Simplicity

Some Poets shun stunning elegance of simplicity,
In copious and plain eloquence simplicity waxes strong,

Along slimy and slippery slopes the bard throng trod,

Knitting cobwebs in which many laggards get ensnared,

Being taught bitter lessons in a diet of diction torture,

Intricate lexicon, amidst pedantic puddles to wade through,

Simplicity, mother of beauty, none of their care
Simplicity, mother of beauty
Frowns on arrogance of poets and their crave for complexity,

Some bards revel in arcane and esoteric lingo,
Tending to wallow and revel in reverse expressions,

In backward design,
Yet, simplicity sheds her luminous light
On paths of sanity-
Simple paths poets pooh-pooh
As fit for simpletons and goons,
Yet they trip and stray into sloppy and devious lanes,

Where racking their brains
They churn indecipherable verbiage-
Diction that leaves many readers nonplussed
And befuddled,
Like a game of lottery,
Unlettered readers do permutations
Wide and wild,
To conjecture what bards always mean
When they are mean
Always the meanings hidden
Between the lines,
In layers and layers of verbiage,
Garbage
Simpletons think this height of cruelty and crudity,

Hiding nudity under heaps of garb and habiliments,
Trust bards to hit back with more mumbo jumbo,
Simplicity of diction is not their addiction
To the sages of poetry,
They’re a club apart in their ramparts,
Pure and unalloyed they ply their trade,
Following the mode of their forebears-
Homer, Sappho, Sophocles, Virgil, Shakespeare and the ilk,

That which was, is and will always be
© 2013
Kwesi Atta Sakyi
Poem by Kwesi Atta Sakyi
Lusaka, 5^th March 2017