They say the Great Poet walked through Delphi—
Silk-covered arms bearing paper and quill—
Marching proudly down streets of the city,
Mocking the people with a prose most ill,
Insulting dull ears and long dead culture,
Spitting on streets and Apollo’s sculpture.
Hateful, they watched the haughty foreigner;
Spiteful, they struck him with violent murmurs,
But he ignored their talk, giving challenge
For any who thought themself better with pen:
“At the sun’s set, I’ll see men of talent,
Whose murmured curses can be made good then—
Take a topic of any place or form,
From which both you and I will write a poem.
Should they best me, I promise to depart;
Else, they’d only elate my pride and heart.”
Renowned there for killing the great serpent,
A hero wrote an epic of battle,
His great verse sure to make poet repent,
To which the Great Poet only chuckled.
He wrote then a verse about Genesis—
A famed apple’s revealing pestilence.
The man forsook gods to biblical rhyme;
The Great Poet then placed on the table coin.
Many tried to conquer a word’s secret,
While the man grew rich on graceful rhythm,
From away, famed artists came to hear it—
In his word was more than Baghdad’s Wisdom.
The poet met no victor in his game
Arrogant, vain, his voice boomed, “praise my name.”
A child named for the old gods would come;
“Apollo,” they told him, “was once well known.”
He met the poet at namesake’s statue—
The youngest challenger the poet met.
“Which subject shall appease your virtue?”
Said Great Poet with heavy disrespect.
“Anything,” said boy, “I choose not to choose.”
Poet laughed cruelly and did not refuse.
As Apollo scribbled away softly;
Poet realized his choice to be hefty:
Anything could fill this blank canvas.
And when the boy was finally done,
Poet had not marked paper, furious.
The boy won fortune with only this poem:
“Infinity could take up a page,
Which could be expressed in any language,
But to best Great Poets, I need not so much;
Just the prideful creative’s Midas touch!”
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