I am a poet and I have known
it for a long time. I was a poet
before I read poetry
before I learned the jargon
poets learn: rhythm and rhyme
alliteration and assonance and
foot and meter. My feet –
my feet have carried me a top
the thin skull of this planet Earth
to and fro the way my father's feet
carried him and the his father's feet
carried him. Most days my feet
hurt and I still insist on walking
because I am a poet and I know
there is wisdom is slowing down
and in taking in all the details.
I am a poet, which means
I was spoiled for most other
occupations. I am a poet
and I understand
there's a difference
between being idle
and standing idly by. People
who are not poets define work
by the amount of time one spends
not being idle, presuming of course,
that there is no purpose in dreaming,
no profit in pondering, no use to
books that are not made into movies
that no one watches because
there are no special effects. I have been,
among other things, a factory work,
an office clerk, a teacher, a preacher,
bum, a student, a father, a husband.
The constant consonants echo
as I think back and the vowels
take shape into words and sounds
that remind me of songs
my mother sang to me before I was born.
I deal in words and I deal honest –
and there is none more hated
than an honest man
with a respectable vocabulary
and the gall to use them. Words have power
in print or spoken – which is something
poets understand intuitively. I am poet
though lately I buy bread with money
made from newspaper print – and though
some may presume to know my meaning,
I suspect some of you are too busy
thinking how best to use
this seemingly idle boy-man
for your own ends and your own agendas.
I care for none of them, and I care for no one
and I care for everyone.
When people hear the word poem,
the first thing they ask is
But Does It Rhyme?
and the next thing they ask is
But What Does it Mean?
A poem is a song –
a song supported by rhyme (sometimes)
but also rhythm and alliteration
and assonance, in the way a song is supported
by notes and and time and measure and beat.
Before there was history, there was a poet
remembering it all, so academes could
write about it later. Poetry and song
have so much in common, the roots
go back primordial... and yet, poets –
ah yes, poets. Poets are quaint
and quiet or disturbed and drunk
or something people become
after they retire from a job
that looks less idle and can be put
in the first line of a well writ
obituary column.
The Problem? I am a poet. But
before you think me arrogant,
I am also a 38 year old boy-man
with a paper route – which is
about as humble as I can be.
I also write for a living, which looks
significantly less idle... though it seems
I will never gain popularity
because I see people's petty secrets,
the scars they hide under long sleeves
and judgment. My father once told me –
you can't please everyone
so you're better off not trying. Life
is too too short
and too too precious
to waste on people
who would wear you down
just to make themselves feel
bigger.My father was a great man
in spite of being a Republican,
and I take this into account
when, in the process of dissecting
badly spliced words each week,
when people tell me one thing
then do something else.
Words are like bullets.
Only better.
A bullet will kill
but a word will
burrow into your brain
and stay and give you
nightmares 30 years hence.
I would rather deal in words
than in bullets because
the former requires deliberation
and the later requires little
except in the inability to listen.