neglected

the poets' words fall softly,
dust upon the drought
of drunken ears, falling
like nuclear winter
on cities of the dead

and somewhere, among the
shattered, shadowed ruins,
the neglected stepchildren
of the arts remain,
waiting for the half-life
of a dying culture to end,
waiting for the birth
of a new renaissance

while mother muse curses
the god of fermentation
and dreams of an era
when the intoxication
of the word was sufficient.

she gathers her children
together, comforts them
with songs, sonnets,
and stories of another time
while they wait for the world
to come around, the father
that they never knew

an empty chair by the hearth
the footfalls that never approach,
the heaviness of words hanging
in silence, the apathetic air,
the deep blue echoes
of a thousand times a thousand
poems never to be heard.