Ode to poetry
Great art emerges from pain, I heard
No quotidian thought, no ordinary word
You either speak of lifeless life,
being a lonely wolf or a flightless bird.
How dare you write of that one time
when you sat on the river, struggling to rhyme?
Are you a poet? Your pain doesn’t flow into words
like every day the 12 o’clock church bells chime.
Do you write about flowers, mountains and bees,
singing cuckoos and swaying trees?
Perhaps about the music that waves played
for you on the beach at 28 degrees?
Should you write about your broken heart
Or how the miles drove your best friend apart
Who gets to decide if your words are worth,
If bliss is a craft, if pain is art?
All of them feed their opinions in me,
Words, thoughts, ideas, for free.
Write -- for the days you sink, or you soar
are your own, not only for the world to see.