Sunday, March 22, 2015

State of the Union

There are times when I want to leave poetry.
File the papers and be done with it.
Walk out the door, a slam at the end
of the last line. Full stop.
See ya later, alliterator.

I’m tired of poetry not paying the rent.
Tired of washing poetry’s dirty laundry.
Tired of cleaning up after poetry,
nothing but half-empty bottles
and an inbox of rejections.

Poetry, I’m even tired of your name,
how the mere mention of you can kill
a perfectly good conversation.
How even writers don’t claim you,
relegated to your own forsaken slot:
Poets and Writers.

And when was the last time you cooked
me dinner? Mowed the lawn?
Spackled the den?

You want all of me.
I can’t take a walk without you
tap-tapping in my brain, can’t wake up
without one of your lines
jolting me from dreamland.  

I’m late for work because of you.
Skip meals because of you.
Lose sleep over you.

Poetry, you are at the core of my every apple,
under the bark of the alder;
in the curve of the earthworm
and in the droplets of the nimbus cloud. 

You exist in the dimensions of the observable universe,
and in all that lies beyond.
In everything known and unknown,
in everything knowable and unknowable.
In quark (the particle) and quark (the cheese).

You are every word I attempt to write,
you are this poem, you are me
and I am you. Poetry,
I will never leave you.


  1. oh, you say it so well, you POET, you! This is the way of creative expression, isn't it? you love it, you hate it, it is at the center of your being. It is who you are. Lovely, T., just lovely

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