First post for newbie

[only rob]

Process




When you see a star
as a bullet-hole in god’s sable
shroud
or a homeless vet as a king
when the ring ‘round your tub
is a commentary
on the class division in Ameriky
or a single soggy cheerio
a rebuttal
of adult superiority –

when you see academics as the cloud
hanging over a library
as gargoyles
or your mind erupts
with love songs
for an aged truck
with love-stained seats from
a midnight

assignation –

when words erupt from a pen, a crayon
your mouth, like diarrhea from a goose
on the loose where empty leaves
are unborn children
and the very sky begs for your poems –

when you madness yourself thinking
in metaphors and odd yourself
to your fellows
or bellow sonnets without
provocation
in a biker bar –

or if you find yourself screaming
the truth to the blind ears
of the merchant
with adjectives scattered through
a run-on sentence that flows
like a river in Xanadu
because you must
inflict magic on journals
that proclaim the glory
of Dick and freakin' Jane
and pages of navel gazing
drivel cause you physical pain -

when you trust yourself to plead
on behalf of the thinker
the verbose tinkerer
in a desert of empty verse -

when you cut yourself
on the world
and bleed words -


you just might be a poet.