Prompt: Why is poetry the language of the dead?
Their tongues are rotten, aren’t they? Munched by worms or turned to ash, so they could hardly talk in prose. Rather they must bubble up in juxtaposition, and be remembered lyrically. If expiry is death, then to live again, we have to be inspired… in spirit. In plainer voice, the dead are only corpses. The sparkle that’s gone from their eyes is what happens between the lines.
Wes Viola is a pen name of Wes White; the tenth Bard of Gorsedh Ynys Witrin (better known as Glastonbury) in modern times. Other examples of his writing have appeared in Bear Creek Gazette, Obsessed with Pipework, Visual Verse, Bog, Dreich, and Eunoia Review. In his ‘Wedding Ritual’ project, other creatives are profiled. Find all of this and more through http://linktr.ee/wesviola
Twitter: @wesviola