A.D. Winans: Captain Jack

CAPTAIN JACK

 

I know this poet who dances with words
who does the two-step political hustle
that lacks any real muscle

 

a Waltzing Matilda poet
who glides along the dance floor
like a skilled political whore

 

a poet weaned on the game of favors
who traded in his vision
for a poetry politicians hat

but dancing for an audience
isn’t like feeling the rhythm

that rubs up against the soul

 

Buffy Saint-Marie
Phil Ochs, Woody Guthrie,

Pete Seeger, Billy Bragg
were living proof of this

 

power corrupts

the spiritual truth

the scriptures tell us this

the true poet knows this

stands tall above the dancing

with word poets

who are little more than

an instrument of a poem

far greater than themselves

*

bar room revolution talk

is little more than
an exercise in futility

take it to the streets

be like Walt Whitman
walk blood stained battlefields

real and imagined

tend to the spiritual wounds

of your comrades

quit trading favors
in twenty-eight
Baskin and Robbin flavors

 

be like the people of Egypt

who risked life and limb

for their beliefs
be like the anonymous poets of Poland

who during the height

of government tyranny

tossed poems into the public square

for the people to read

giving them hope in desperate times

 

sitting at Spec’s bar in North Beach

downing shots of vodka

and shouting,” I hate America,
is cheap political theater

 

be like your sisters and brothers

in the workers struggle in Wisconsin

marching for worker rights

love them become one with them

shout your poems from town squares
and from rooftops in solidarity

with them.

 

poet laureate’s come and go
inmates die on death row
words can not be danced with
they need to b lived

 

Whitman was the Heavyweight
champion of poetry

stood tall and fearless

among the enemy

which is never really man

but the poison in his soul

 

pride envy ego
lust for power

how can those inflicted

with this disease

write from the soul

one column of media praise

is of less value

than a single tear-drop on a poem

from a waitress in a greasy

road stop diner

 

a poet who dances with words

dances a solo dance

in a barroom with no jukebox

 

the true poet’s topic
is the people

not the poet.

*

https://www.amazon.com/author/a.d.winans