Today is #WorldPoetryDay, so here is a poem I wrote a few years back, which was published in The Deronda Review in 2022.
Earth, 2022
Wordsworth! Thou shouldst be living at this hour:
The world doth need thee, she is a morass–
For lately our discourse has become crass–
And neutered is our creative power,
We’ve taken Gradgrind’s view of the flower:
Made slaves to statistics, money, and math,
In schools devoid of art and music class.
The child is the father of the man, sour–
Your voice taught us the breathings of our hearts,
The spontaneous overflow of our soul;
The rainbow in the sky that makes us whole;
To observe divine nature and create,
And elevate ourselves by making art–
To leap up again before it’s too late.
—A. A. Rubin
And, if you enjoy my poetry, please consider supporting The Awful Alphabet, which includes my twisted verse and Sara McCall Ephron’s surreal art on Backerkit.
A. A. Rubin 