In our times of trouble we only had ourselves. Nobody else knows, no one there to save us, we had to save ourselves. Yeah. When the storms came throu… - John Miles Foley

The default designation of poetry has become written poetry. That's why we have to prefix the adjective "oral," because the unmodified noun no longer covers anything but written poetry. That's also why we resort to other unwieldy phrases to pigeonhole events and phenomena that our cultural proclivities have silently eliminated from consideration. Thus a "poetry reading" describes a performance (from a published text, of course) before a well-behaved, often academic audience. Thus "spoken-word poetry"—so redundant from a historical perspective—identifies voiced verbal art, verse that is lifted off the page and into the world of presence and experience.

Sitting in your easy chair
looking at the wall,
thinking of the things that might've been.
And as you wish your life away
with dreams of mystic gold,
imagine all the things you could've seen,
imagine all the things you could've seen.
Looking out the window
staring at the rain,
Wonder if the sun will ever shine?
And if you only realised
that life won't pass you by,
the only thing that's passing is your time.
The only thing that's passing is your time.
Oh no!
Oh no! No!

It's not over, no, it's not over yet.
Yeah, we'll put all this pain behind us,
recover and start again, come on.
It's not over, no, it's not over yet.
Sweet forgiving rain, wash away my shame,
let the clouds roll by
and reveal a brighter day. Yeah.