Raking in the poetry

The record keepers and magnifiers
emphasized the purpose of poetry.
All of them, some that wear glasses,
some enshrined in plastic name clips.
All paper people
pretended
not just poets read poetry
as if listening was another way.

It was the concept, not the thing itself.
Grasping for a metaphor, clutching it like a baby spoon,
mush, mulch, nutrients, marrow, letting the heaviest bits
sink into oblivion as bullion or aether.
Comfort food. Settling.
Essences do not help with sleep and monotony,
pillows don't help with the blows of day
despite the changing positions or points of you
dealing with it and spitting feathers out.

The poet thinks his poems are the sharpest
because he has cleaved them out of his own
family tree and lay claim to uprooted and unfounded
murky concepts dim lit,
he has the callouses to prove it.

We have been warned about our
rites and rules of the word
which make or break a fine line between
make, made, pane and pain.
It always comes out as a color,
expression of tone that matches
the eye, radiant on the pyre
we warm up to the edges
with enough pacing.

Compliments come with a modest reading fee.
Only we poets read poetry, ideally free
from notoriety and ultimately forgotten.
We needed trees more than prose.
The leaf knows about leaves
from watching the Fall.

and greens in envy of the sun.

Poets lied

in the shadows thrown about, whistling

while they wait.


Painting By Ellen Robbins (1828–1905) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.