I am not a woman of Mona Lisa smiles,
(if she's even trying to smile).
I am not coy, no pretense, simply shy.
There is really little mystery to me.
My heart is on my sleeve,
my mind is an open book.
Few take time to notice the blood drops on my clothes
Read the lines scrawled across my forehead,
inspect my ink stained hands,
or read the late night rambles I hesitate to call poetry.
I am simplistic, with stripes of imperfection,
My music has been called "Sweet"
as one might say a child is sweet,
in a winsome, ribbon-laced fashion.
I know it is simple. Juvenile.
But children can speak with more depth
than their mature, beautiful parents.
My poetry is merely fractions
of my soul, disguised on a page
to look like words.
Nothing quite a masterpiece,
I'd be shunned from the guilds of European masters.
I am folk art, they are Rembrandt.
I've never been known to send someone to a dictionary,
or force a rhyme in Chaucer's name.
It is all simple shards of imagination
That managed to struggle out of my brain, down my arms,
and into my hands.
They're mangled by the time they arrive.
Colorful pilgrims worn by hard weather,
and lack of skill,
but no less pious.