Joe Gouveia

On the Self-Serving Apathy of Poets and Artists

Inspired by the seated Joe Gouveia, poetry curator, and John Bonanni, poetry editor

When poets, artists, and others will not stand up
in overt, visceral support
for the fundamental human right

to freedom

of speech

and expression,

especially regarding those rare individuals,
who would choose truth over groveling for fame,
recognition, position, and financial remuneration…

When poets, artists, and others refuse to stand

because they disagree with those rare individuals,
dislike, hate, scorn, or simply do not know them,

and instead make excuses for inaction or silence,

turning to ridicule, denigration, or purposeful snubbing,
as if somehow that would erase the egregious hypocrisy

of their hot-air reality,

then that most fundamental of human rights,

for all intensive purposes, no longer truly exists,
for what can such freedom come to mean
when those rare individuals, who choose truth
over that which serves to bind poets, artists, and others 
into a state of permanent denial and general fraudulence,

when those rare individuals, the ones who truly need it,

end up being ostracized into oblivion?