T'is a curious thing,
these verbal peddlers,
these tribal members,
famously well known to no one,
perhaps at best,
a kindred few, fellow-travelers.

Each a troop,
in the army of orphans,
bloodied, purple hearted,
word-wounded,
anonymous unto each other,
yet all bonded intimates,
in solitary struggle united,
yet sea-parted by the very nature
of the solitude of composition.

All poets are Cain scar-marked,
purposed for everyone to see,
a warning to the rabbled boors,
the imagination suppressors!

World:

cherish these flawed ones,
gentle these frail but gritty,
the Lord has tasked them
to be prophets in one tongue untied,
undo the strife of Babel's division.

Poets!

Be the harpooners
of the unexamined life,
with unfettered rhapsody,
comfort caress us,
exhort the loopy
to light their illusionary candles,
turn the sad eyed lowlanders
into crinkly eye-lined smilers.

With clinical observation,
dense and demanding,
make us laugh at
the comedy of our situation,
teach us our free-to-see peep show,
reveal, unseal us
with **** empathy!

For who's who in poetry
is all of us!
saviors and failures,
recorders and decoders,
night writers of the oohs and aahs
of dreams and nightmares.

When this poet cannot,
no longer, anymore,
taste his poems upon your lips,
keep your poems within his heart,
then he breathes no more,
becoming one who was, yet still is,
because of you,
because of poetry.

together, more than a century
it occurs to his fresh coffee'd brain,
as he,
sliding in behind, half-assedly,
as in half in/half off the bed,
but the rest, the best, nestled, ensconced,
in a serpentine curvature connected

smiling too loudly,
titter~muffled giggle
at the passing by, a funny bone notion,
that combined, conjoined,
together, more than a century,
well, and well more, than that,
a depository of collections, nuances,
cross filed, so that our recollected told tales,
have been all heard before and will again
be retold with a swelling newness
to newborn readers,
checking out the classics

the roar of my suppressed soundings,
clearly too louding,
sleepy hoarse asks
the inevitable "what's the chuckle,"
so accustomed she be to my,
unexpected laughs expectorated,
menagerie of multiplicity of muckled
roars and guffaws, tee hee's,
she will n'ere be satisfied
with a non-answer,,
with a wiley evasion to
her invasion of my innermost

"occurs to me we are a very historical
(never employing that olden adjective)

library,

two cuddling librarians,
who are compelled
to our shelves,
to add a new book daily"

she laughs and kindly requests,
my immediate departure,
for having caused her by
mine awoking and
her evoking
laugh,
to be kicked out of the
library
for excessive noise making

not the first time,
and not the last,
he laughs,
uproariously,
in the deepest of his innermost,
hidden in the silent stacks of their library,
in a demilitarized zone,
neath two pillows soft by,
lest he be shushed vociferously,
by his once again, softly sleeping,
co-conspirator
librarian