Poetry-Day Ten

I like to write poetry; that's something most of my friends know but people I meet are often surprised that I do. Never understood why exactly... perhaps it's because I'm a dude, because I'm too thugged out, too loud, noisy, outta control... I suppose those aren't the normal parameters into which poetry falls, but there's an exception to every rule, thus I write poetry. I write, therefore I am. My qualms lie in reading poetry. It either inspires me or frustrates me. So often I come across a fantastic poem and it moves me and soothes me deep in my being but it's so fantastic that it seems that anything that I write will never reach that level of brilliance.

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
and the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
T.S. Elliot

How amazing is that? There's something in there that is so mind-blowing beautiful that none of the feeble scribbling that this poor 25 year old poet can even come close.

I can only hack away at the 26 letters on this keyboard and wrestle with the words till something comes clean.

in rhymes find intertwined mind crimes
unless blind, wrists say "cut on blue lines"
in time find death to flesh on waiting list
must resist a blade clenched fist, solipsist
present degenerate, resent the fascination
death travels fast, failed reconciliation
ask Macbeth about red, the doubt that comes
show world pain, the blood red blood that runs
will over steel, still the hand shakes but stayed
turning now to find a finely re-inked blade
despite excision the will will not be sacrificed
baptized in the blood like disciples of christ
despite a slight the pens writes wronged rights
an many a soul is saved during starlit nights

-j.shelton-
-it is what it is-