On being a poet

On being a poet 

It's awful, having nothing to say,

To sit silent like a toad,

Breathing in and breathing out.

Yet how pleased he seems

To sit, sun and shadows,

Breeze to stir the reeds.

Look how his sides heave,

A bellows of deep rhythms.

Nothing in the bright bead eyes

Of shame or want. No whipping 

For missed flies, regret or condemnation.

Only is. Only am. Only he,

Uncensored by his mind,

Free to breathe. Little Buddha, 

Free to be. 

No Words

NO WORDS



Blank Page,
     white and bare
          as winter.

Scant Words,
     black birds
          on crusted snow.

Poor Hearts
     beat wings
          in bony cages.

No Song
   to measure
          what the heart can hold.


I owe much of this poem to Zelda Fitzgerald, who said, "No one, not even a poet, can measure how much the heart can hold."  Pairing her quotation with the pictured quote from a Victorian poet might seem strange, but it makes perfect sense to me in light of the poem's subject. Thank you both, fair ladies.

ain't got no

ain’t got no rhythm

ain’t got no rhyme

ain’t got no story

ain’t got no time

ain’t got no song

within my head

ain’t got no lover

in my bed

ain’t got no friend

to call my own

ain’t got no right

to cast a stone

ain’t got no hope

for another day

ain’t got no more

for me to say

ain’t got no rhythm

ain’t got no rhyme

ain’t got no story

just outta time

The House of the Poet

Every morning, the poet
leaves her house
to search the hills for
one perfect flower-
a yellow buckwheat,
the white-haired leather flower,
or mountain pimpernel,
tenacious specimens that cling
and root deep into the mountain.
Higher she climbs and higher,
turning over loose shale
that bounces from the backs
of the beasts that clack and rattle below.
Nothing lives on the barrens,
only the dust that stains her
black as the coal running in the veins.
By night, she wanders claustrophobic rooms,
preparing labels for empty jars
and writing epitaphs for garden walls.
Flowing formations growl
within the belly of the earth,
but no words guard the door
to the house of the poet.