I spoke to Kissinger this week

~for C. C.   the reluctant poet~


read him your poem,

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1933595/kissinger-on-park/

spoke of your reluctance
to write without the encouragement of others
(see below)

K. said poetry writing
very similar to decision making -
a single letter addition makes it into a wry thing:

writhing

but once you’ve published,
  once you have made the policy decision
then and only then begins the incision
that others cut upon your chest,
to fill with infectious assassination or
admiration,
at the risk taken

K. said: pray and trust that you reluctant fellow
and I
can non-disclose (hide) our internist discordance,
neath a sheen of stolidity that is a
pretense gravitas cover-up certainty,
for we wince when they shoulder tap you with
hindsight queries that you recognize
as retro grade F seeds
of inequitude

if you require recognition as encouragement, K. intoned,
prepare prepayments for your poems,
you have failed before even starting

please your self, lad, no one else,
reluctance is the chief ingredient in failure
do the work and pray for grace to do some
yeoman-well-enough to carry others upon the outgoing tide
of your burdened shoulders

this man who transmits my words
has been kicked off the fence, rejected,
a
frequent wrong road chooser,
for at least 25 years too,
stiff-necked like me, refuge survivor,
who leaves it all the way out
from no one nothing hiding,
freely acknowledges the policy errors of his wasted life,
can not be but the finest fodder for the retrospective historians
but he reminds us
loving children and animals is one way to say
I am so sorry for
the human judgments one must make when
first you sign your true and honest name
at the end of a
poem
or a war they call yours

reluctance is a luxury one can ill afford,
it seeps and permeates in the guise
of a sleepless temerity
and cracks the reflection served up
in the mornings first judgement,
that is,
if you dare to
reflect

<•>

~ a message from the Reluctant Poet~

“I'm a reluctant poet myself -
just started getting some
positive responses here recently,
which is ever so heartening.
I have three poems total posted!...
I'm just happy when
I can get deep down and say
what I want to say, and
hopefully give it a little beauty and
poetical magic for good measure.
The rest is up to the dear readers.”*
<•>