Poetry
ON COMPLEXITY
In the ancient poems you might spy
(with a crafty zealot’s eye)
the ardour with which the old ones try
to do everything but simplify.
They manufacture with unfettered pleasure
A piece that can deny all measure:
An amalgamation or composition
So ornate as to defy all exposition.
But would you this complexity deny,
This work to make lexicographers cry?
Ah, to plough through the cloy on bold destrier,
Makes a blessing, not an anathema;
And this modern literary diaspora (which
Makes every form of oeuvre fit
For every soul and soulless man)
Can make in some a poesy fan.
And just because they strive to include
Sub-clauses within clauses, themselves confused
Occasionally by their own convoluted lines
That embroil their tongues like jungle vines,
We shouldn’t condemn their works infused
With syntax to make us all confused.
So if you in these lines do see
A wordsmith’s manifest fantasy,
Then you – just one of few – like me
Are an aficionado of complexity.