Cold Steel

I seem to recall reading a post calling for something resembling iambic tetrameter, so here's my offering. Thanks for reading. Cold steel and steel can never meld Sans fire and flux to make the weld In separate states forever smelt Bereft of heat to make them melt And in the furnace of the mind Where thoughts and words transform combined What heat but passion from the heart Can catalyse those unbound parts? What flux save for emotions feel Can fuse imaginations steel? What fire but creativity Can fuel the forge of poetry? In every mind a world unique Portrays its own reality In every heart a soul that seeks Release from passions ardent heat And you, sad pedagogue of writ In ivory tower's heights you sit The literary bourgeoisie The wannabe-a-Pharisee With sanctimonious pedantry And shallow rationality You sermonize reality And repress spontaneity Where is your heart? Where is desire? Where is your passion? Where is fire? How privileged has your life been That you can't speculate and dream Your whetted acumen is blind To know the world within my mind Your intellect can't comprehend The depth of my experience Pursue release from your conceit Try standing on your own two feet Throw-off the robes and go without And learn what real-life's all about Go live in Haiti on the street To beg for food and go bare-feet You'll seek relief in destitution Abstraction's wisdom in affliction Your erudition will be free To ruminate exquisitely When misery and deprivation Bring to naught your education Then spend some time with Unicef Attend some starving children’s deaths And look into their parents eyes To tell them not to theorize And when you've learned to wonder why Compassion's tears have wet your eye When you know your own contrition And seek relief in dream and vision Then go back to that ivory tower With all your rationale and power And sprinkle petrol all around Then strike a match and burn it down.