Slain By Critics (Poetry)

All you who are untutored in the arts —
have basic skills but use them rough and raw
and let the story flow straight from the heart
without pretention — freed of discipline
and the constraints of grammar’s etiquette —
you are as glass — the honesty shines through.

Your nature’s true — unaltered by the style
of others who would change the shape of words
and have you writing formal ways and false
to what you represent and who you are —
yet you resist — maintain simplicity
while they plot murder — stab you on the page.

You have your followers — the fans who read
every novel — each new poem spun
to small communications — every one
finds something of themselves — a bridge to span
the stream of humane thought — a single arc
those literary critics fail to see —

their gaze set high on some invented scale
that gauges worth — dismissing readily
the fundamental point — their minds long-closed
to easy lines — uncomplicated prose
and real emotion artlessly expressed —
so rebel culture mocks, uncensored yet —

found popular and prized above the rest.