Joey

I grew upon a pencil tip

A creature made of carbon

The words I spoke from quivering lips

Were merely passive pardons

But up above, the grinding gears

Were working through my judgment's lens

It wasn't long for all they'd hear

The scratching of my pensive pen 

I raced down rushing rivers red

And grazed in grassy groves of green

These feelings seething in my head

Objectified in natural scenes

Emotions coasted on with lust

Invigored by incisive ink

As boyish wonders turned to dust

My heart began to truly think

As roses bloomed in scarlet suns

And tingles tap-danced on my tongue

I knew that I had found the one

With songs I'd written, never sung

But even in the willow's weep

The body moves in parting waves

Bereft of promise left to keep

The pen resigned to carve it's grave

Yet even as my blood renewed

I'd never lose my stumbling stars

 I found them in my soul imbued

To fetch my feelings from afar

The typist came to sack the scribe

The letters never seemed to care

The keyboard waltz, a freshened vibe

Stupendous in its ease to share

Still I type, to quench my fright

To satiate external silence 

Crafted in the crying night

Reporting of cerebral violence

This is an essay. I write these too. Yessir, I am polite and I comform to the rules. Don't mind me, I am quiet. I am not an innovator, for the rubric must be met. Have I met the six sentence requirement yet?

My hands were bound to spiraled books

The lines denied my sculptor's script

"Move only straight, you rebel rook,"

The brainwashed king and bishop quipped

I broke the lamp of condescendence

Bradbury-ied every classic word

I belted out my song of vengeance 

When it finally occurred

I didn't need to write on lines

Or swim inside parameters

I didn't have to match my rhymes

Or use iambic pentameter

So I stopped.

Deliciously.

Suspiciously, they began to search, maliciously. 

I wished they'd take the slip from me, but soon I found with victory that it was all fictitious.

See?

I am no more real than the product of my hands upon a keyboard.

Dancing the night away. 

And that is what a poem has taught to me.