The Unstoppable

Poetry ought to be dead by now
After all,God's dead.
The human spirit,the muses
Even truth,beauty,courage and honour 
They're all dead these days
Philosophers,psychologists and all who know best,
They've all said,"Dead".
And as for the bloke in the bar
Who spouts long and loud after a jar 
Or a few
He said,"Dead" too.

So why is it that sometimes everything seems to stop
And the pattern hidden beneath is revealed?
Why does this mysterious familiar tide
Well up within?
Why does "It" whatever it  is
Demand your attention and your toil
Until it is given a form ,a body
So that it can live outside of you?
This part of you which must escape to live?
Very strange.

Oh, and it will live;it will struggle and kick like a baby.
You will be like a woman in labour.
       Cause it to be born
       And you both will be free.
       Deny it birth and
       Part of you will die.

Even the creative block
Is not an obstacle but an anvil
Upon which you and your thoughts
Are to be beaten out and shaped.

Only you can stop the unstoppable
From rising and forming in you.

But even if you do and you dismiss the muses 
As quirks of a psychological shadowland
They will not be silenced
Even if you prove there are no ghosts
You will not stop this haunting,

      You can refuse to be a prophet
      But the prophecy will find another voice.
      The poem will find another hand
      To hammer out its rhymes
      If you try to stop the unstoppable.
                
                                                           Wilf 10/2004