Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the Loss of Kubla Khan

...A Poem

There are things in banal life all will have to do;

market, work at job, say hello to Mrs. Jones.

But these, more times than not, short-circuit matter deep,

poetry that most reveals the heart of searching man,

thought and feeling that crack convention's dismal crust,

surface life like seedling thrust the vaunted muck

of earth, to rise from zone unknown, but yet more real,

than ringing telephone, knock on door by neighbor,

Jehovah's Witness who nicely seeks to set thought right.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge paid such price – as we –

in stoppage of the shining flow of "Kubla Khan,"

that came by way of dream complete in form and line,

with person out of Porlock rapping at his door.

Only now the famous fragment does remain,

the rest obscured by commerce, ill-luck set in time,

like bright stone through darkest substance fallen,

returned to its domain, beyond all sounding,

at the elemental grounding of the world.

Copyright by Don Gray