Yours is a Hollow Refrain

Don't do dumb stuff. People will think you're dumb. - Mr. Byars, (my high school biology teacher)

I've heard it all a thousand times from
voices more mature and louder than yours,
how much you don't like to read
and you don't like to write,
and you shout about and tout this constructed ignorance
and wear this sneering indifference like a
badge of honor as you walk this institution's floors.

To all who will listen, but particularly
the denizens of education, you proudly proclaim
that you don't like to read
and you don't like to write,
and you say it with stress to impress, and confess
that we should expect less from you
as if somehow just asking us to
is enough to quench our disappointment

and quell your shame.

You say that novels are a bore
and poetry you abhor and if you have to write one more
critical essay on the allegories in 1984
or some ridiculous first-person short story about some
nameless bum who was too dumb and got stuck
as a foot-soldier in some godforsaken war
that didn't occur in your lifetime
you won't be responsible for your next crime.

I've studied your work product
and I'm apt to agree, to some degree,
with your confession
that you don't like to read
and you don't like to write.
Your disdain is evident in every misspelled word and
unpunctuated sentence, and hence, I can't make sense
of your thoughts made without expression.

You haven't read the masters who took language
to another level - showered the willing with a gifted rain.
So, you can't emulate Sylvia Plath or Shakespeare
or Isaac Asimov or Dr. Seuss or Thomas Payne.
And again you complain
that you don't like to read
and you don't like to write.
Yours is a hollow refrain.
The lack of importance you place on these arts
leaves chasms in the minds and voids in the hearts
of those who would wish you to prosper and gain.

How do you expect to connect with those who project,
through their learned words, opportunity unbounded?
Those who discover that language is key
to the skill of persuasion, to imparting knowledge,
to soothing or ruffling contingent on occasion?
Your crossroads is here, your choice is at hand;
Leave behind your aversion to spending time in your head,
Your objections to reading and writing unfounded,
And embrace the benefits of these skills instead.

© Jeff Wilson, 2009