Write for No One
Of all the ways
words can be expressed
it’s impossible to know
if what one imparts
into the world
will be impactful enough
to leave a mark
at any depth
under any person’s skin
nor
is it reasonable to assume
someone
will catch on
to your words
during your lifetime
considering the best ones
are beloved
long after they’re dead.
Therefore,
a poet’s obligation
is simple:
You must
speak for yourself
satisfying every compulsion to communicate
before all else
because in your world
your words matter the most.
You must
jot down anything
that excites your heart enough
to leap from your chest
because if passion isn’t pumping out of you
then you’re already
more than halfway dead.
You must
archive every sentiment
flooding your mind
without restraint
or influence
because when your voice departs this realm
a unique frequency will be left behind
connecting us with you
in the afterlife.
and
most importantly
You must
never hold back the truth
even if it kills you
because in an age where honesty is hard to come by
your words could empower
a bullied child
to muster the courage to say “NO,”
or a mother with a swollen jaw
to regain the proper footing to walk away,
or a divided nation
to disassemble their broken machine
only to rebuild it again so it runs new.
and
you must
do this all
without an audience in mind,
without a contingency plan,
without love or praise
cheering for you at the finish line,
and without tomorrow
because there may never be a
tomorrow.
Now
is when a poet should write.
You should write selfishly,
be unrelenting with your words,
and tell it raw—
Speak Fucking Raw!
Who cares who you please
or if it's politically correct?
Who determines what’s right anyway?
As a poet
you must be willing to rebel,
and do it often
because who else will?
You should
write a beginning
sometimes skip the middle
and always leave out the end
because dreams
are only dreamed
when free thought
is given room to exist
not
when they’re charted out for you
to the very end,
and
A Good Poet
is a cartographer of the heart
who doesn’t point you to a definitive X
on a hand-drawn map,
but instead
helps you navigate
to the buried treasures deep within.
The poets
who write for themselves,
who think for themselves,
who are their authentic selves,
will write for everyone.
So,
at all costs,
write for no one.
What is the job of a poet?
To lie beautifully.
Kind of.
I mean, no one really talks like that.
Do you know how long it takes to get the rhythm right?
Sometimes countless hours,
spent formulating thoughts.
Pushing the dust of fragmented ideas into a mold
consisting of 26 letters.
And then put out into the world with the sincere hope
that the person who reads it will understand the intention
or maybe have something to add
and that idea that was once just gaseous
is in many minds, as a liquid ironclad.
And he sits in a dark room at a desk
going on midnight with work in the morning
trying like hell to create something
working out in his own heart the meaning of his thoughts
using definitions that he knows to shape them into clumps
and
put
them
on
the
screen
for you to see and hopefully enjoy
the way the poem looks and seems and makes you feel
as though you met him through his words.
veridical paradoxes
the way they
twist words in their fingers
like a game of cat's cradle ,
and scatter
the letters back out ,
they make you remember
a feeling
that you'd forgotten ,
overlooked
.
and spill it across your tongue like nightmare ink ,
tortured words too ill to speak ,
to make themselves
relive it again ,
and find solace
in bleeding their heart out .
to make tangible
the intangible ,
to give reason
to the unreasonable ,
to cross out their heart
and re-write it in chalk lines
in a shape
a little easier to read .
to breathe .
and confess it all to you .
and hide .
Magic
Poetry is a beautiful literary means in which the writer may connect with someone by using a few or a vast number of carefully selected phrases. The poet pulls in his reader, capturing his senses with unique word sequences and cascading rhythms that are capable of stirring deep emotions. Powerful poetry evokes an array of memories and ideas with which the reader identifies or connects. A poet can easily stoke the reader’s imagination and dreams, taking him on a trip to any place or any spectrum of time.
Poetry is essentially magic, and the poet, the magician.
After the Show
Jer'Imyah swept the floor. Ingrid put away the leftovers. Jason brought out the coolers. It took two people to pull the tablecloths, and two more to haul out the garbage bags to the dumpster. Keith coiled the electrical cord, while Blaise loaded the equipment into the truck. Alyson checked the clipboard, as Avril counted the serving utensils. Carl and Denise folded the chairs. Ted carried them away. You stood transfixed with your back to the stage lights, your hair catching fire when I passed from the right not daring to touch. Smiling, you're focused the other way at a crinkled silver candy wrapper swirling in the crosswind of the open doors, and I follow, the length of your arm extending through all the beams of hot and cold:
Shh, look! Someone
Left a little Fire
Cracker
for our
Grand
finale!
09.07.2023
That's the job of a poet challenge @TheWolfeDen
The job of a poet.
Is to write
but not just to write
But to tell a story
but not just that
It is to fill your heart with emotions
and confuse your mind with dreams that can't possibly be real
and to drag the rhythm
of each line
in a slow dance
tempting you to take a bite
just like Eve did
The job is of a poet is not just to pull at your heart strings and play you a song
but to be the siren that pulls you under the waves
gasping for another line
another breath
until you don't know your right from your left,
who you are or where land is.
That is the job of a poet.
Chroniciling
Poets.
Bards.
Shamans.
Mothers.
Godfathers.
Best friend.
Delivery line, comedian.
What is this job?
Why do we care?
Divorce from our multi-layers is not possible without great universal harm.
And in this narrative, we do not condone “doing harm.”
Does this hint at medical professionals linking to poet-like feats?
Perhaps.
But let’s let the listeners decide.
Many might say poets daydream, twisting language into an art. Language arts notwithstanding, the very real exchange between author and medium, and between inner realms of the non-conscious and the finally-understood, is a quantum world hardly contained in ink. We simply construct housing to hoard as many expressions of it as we can.
The bottomless pond.
Can poets still grasp the significance they play?
Will we see one day how poems should archive with their outcomes? Epics, comics, inventions, history texts…
Perhaps this future chronicle style will finally satiate the vacuum where we dump our creative force.
Who knows how poems will evolve after that.
