09-05-2022, 11:43 AM
All right.....I'll hop on the Retro Train. This one is from an ancient NaPM thread.
It's prosaic in every way, but may contain a nugget worth keeping. Fingers crossed.
The Fear is in the Risk
The fear is in the risk
of laying awake at night for poetry –
staying at home for it,
slowly steeping yourself.
But you've married it:
let it penetrate, imprint itself onto you,
transform you into someone who sees
letters in the trees, dashes in the sand.
Half your social circle is long dead,
and the living don't care for your stories,
as if you're the last member
of your family to die.
Living poets are unknown –
might as well be Templar knights,
no one thinks they exist anymore.
You dare not slip and say, “I'm a poet,”
or even the lesser but more accurate, “I write poetry,”
for that's like saying, “I'm a Dodo bird.”
They'll look at you like you've just donned
a powdered wig and a parasol,
like you're too pretentious to eat BBQ
in their backyard, too morose
to laugh at their jokes.
Best not to tell people about writing poetry.
Treat it like a childhood lie
you can't ever reveal lest people know
you're fundamentally unlike them.
When people ask, “What are your hobbies,
what did you do this weekend?”
disclose a fetish instead!
Say to them, “I'm trying to learn how
to pee into my mouth.”
Because, unlike reading
or writing poetry,
they've actually tried that.
It's prosaic in every way, but may contain a nugget worth keeping. Fingers crossed.
The Fear is in the Risk
The fear is in the risk
of laying awake at night for poetry –
staying at home for it,
slowly steeping yourself.
But you've married it:
let it penetrate, imprint itself onto you,
transform you into someone who sees
letters in the trees, dashes in the sand.
Half your social circle is long dead,
and the living don't care for your stories,
as if you're the last member
of your family to die.
Living poets are unknown –
might as well be Templar knights,
no one thinks they exist anymore.
You dare not slip and say, “I'm a poet,”
or even the lesser but more accurate, “I write poetry,”
for that's like saying, “I'm a Dodo bird.”
They'll look at you like you've just donned
a powdered wig and a parasol,
like you're too pretentious to eat BBQ
in their backyard, too morose
to laugh at their jokes.
Best not to tell people about writing poetry.
Treat it like a childhood lie
you can't ever reveal lest people know
you're fundamentally unlike them.
When people ask, “What are your hobbies,
what did you do this weekend?”
disclose a fetish instead!
Say to them, “I'm trying to learn how
to pee into my mouth.”
Because, unlike reading
or writing poetry,
they've actually tried that.