My Path to Poetry

Poetry is a moment of peace.

A voice in the silence…a path through chaos.

            To be a poet is to be a teacher-a shepherd-

A guide to all who hear your words…

Without words we have no way to communicate.

No voice. No opinion.

What better way to say our piece, our part, our two cents, then prose?

Poetry: a literary work in which special intensity

Is given to the expression of feelings and ideas

By the use of distinctive style and rhythm.

Therefore, a poet, being a writer of poetry,

Is an artist of words: Expressing feelings and ideas

Through a distinctive style-with rhythm.

Intensifying the importance, beyond the obvious.

But why to try? When it’s apparently it is a language of gods?

Yet the work of gods is the playground of man.

A playground we call home.

            Words are always there, never ending, always flowing.

            They set the stage, begin the play.

            And create an image in the watcher’s mind.

            Within my mind I see the world, though not necessarily ours.

            In my mind, lies a vast forest as far as the eye can see,

            The gentle slopes and scorching deserts, a dollhouse collecting dust.

            The clouds are silken cotton candy, above a raging sea,

            But how could others take this journey with me?

            A pen to the page, a picture with ink, maybe they can see the same?

            A word, a word, what is that word?

            The right word, the right syntax, the right song to whisper at night,

            Maybe, just maybe, I won’t be alone this time.

                I scare recall how it began…these journeys always were.

            But some weren’t mine, some belonged to others.

            Sometimes I was just along for the ride.

“I’d Love to be A Fairy’s Child” by Robert Graves.

A story of freedom but simple and sweet.

            I’d love to be a fairy’s child.

            A song, a lullaby really, a journey, not mine, in the making.

            Over time a building stack, a growing pile.

            No longer am I alone.

But still none belong to me, none tell my quest

            My long and arduous journey.

            A single teacher, is all it takes. “You can do it too, you know?”

            And from there the pages flow.

            The tears that decorate the ground, where bullies shout their lies,

            Turned to diamond spears upon a page of gold.

            The fears held close to heart, hidden from prying eyes,

            Released onto the pages, form a river clear.

            The joys at new friends, new places, new words

            Bedeck the halls of books, lined paper becoming a constraint.

            And through it all, that journey.         The one I feared to take.

            It called in the quiet night, it sang sweetly in the light of day,

            And now in words it finds its shape

            On paper, napkins and notebooks alike.

            I’m not alone anymore. It’s not a risk all my own.

            With each letter formed upon the page, I travel with every reader

            Every listener, every poet who dares to try.