Sing the songs
of saints and soldiers,
ring the bells
of boys and men,
hum the hymns
of weeping mothers,
who've lost all they had
but heart and pen.

Like a seed
sown out of season
is the falling of poetry
upon fields of reason,
and like a note
played out of time
is the echo of reason
within halls of rhyme.

I tired of living by the pen,
in ink that never changed,
in words that never satisfied,
staring blankly from a page.

I wished to climb the mountains,
like some wild child free,
seeking answers not in stories,
but the rhythm of the sea.

I wished to dance the dance of life
and die the death of men,
and I never did surrender;
no, I fought until the end.

And I wrote in blood and water,
in oil and in tears,
painting whispers on the ceilings
of the places I had feared.

I etched them into mountainsides,
for others there to find,
and a trail of ink was all I saw
when at last I looked behind.

The truth is,
I'm an actor,
a man upon a stage.
I can feign sorrow,
joy, grief, and rage,
and I do it this well
'cause I've felt them before,
but my heart is not Hamlet's,
nor that which you adore.

The truth is,
I'm a playwright,
I do it for the crowd
who can't put into words
the feelings they've found.
I write them like Shakespeare,
how I think it would be
to stand in their shoes
and to see as they see.

The truth is,
I'm a poet,
but I've never been divorced,
I've never had a nasty breakup,
I've never been to war.
I've never really been a dancer,
I've never sailed the seven seas,
I've never lost a friend to cancer,
nor seen eyes close in final peace.

The truth is
that I hope
those who read my works
don't mind
that quite often
it's the characters
and not the stories
that are mine.

All is not art,
yet art is all,
all, that is, that matters,
but I cannot seem to see the scene
when all you form is tatters.

Poetry is everywhere;
it’s in the air we breathe.
It lies within our very hearts
and the rhythm of their beats.

It floats above the mountaintops,
in clouds that move and mingle;
it stirs inside the very earth,
in each shift, and shape, and wrinkle.

It speaks softly in the babbling brook
and flows inside the creek;
it calls loud and clear, from passing birds
as it echoes from their beaks.

It dances 'round the tall oak trees,
when they wave, and sway, and whisper.
The poetry lies everywhere,
exposed to me, the listener.