We all gather here
Young old fat thin wealthy poor
Voluble or quiet
Shy or maybe bold
Even princess but no prince
No matter

We all write silent songs

Some saunter in
Bulging pockets stuffed with
Words
They pull out at random
Glue to the old chalk board in
Confusing stinking chaos
Then they name it poetry
They insist you must read

Perhaps they serve a garden salad
Leafy words already in decay
Which they sniff like aged cheese
And pair with white wine

Others fold origami poems
Engineered with wings
Toss them at you
Boeing planes of paper
That always bank awry
Crash into other words
Made mountains made seas

A few possess talent
Make memories into magic
Slip sly notes from desk
To desk
Where sly mouths silent
Smile back their pleasure
In the read

Here are writers who can write

All that kicking in the third
Trimester, about which
Mother proudly whined
Was nothing more than writer’s block
Ill temper in the little one
Writing and writing
Writing in the womb

Here are masters of the craft
Carpenters of line of rhyme
Plumb-bobbed poems
Straight and true

Like hypnotists on stage
Journeymen and women poets
May put you in a trance
While they sit at a distance
Safe before a desk
Not even wearing pants

They can make you laugh
At nothing
Make you weep with
Made up sorrow
Ask you count your chickens
Today and tomorrow
Make notes in the ledger
Only you can see to borrow

Yet

It ain’t no game
They can write serious
For serious people
They write of life’s big moments
Pick and choose the details
To whittle on
Bring emotions down to size

Sick with love afraid you’ll lose
That woman of mercury moods
Instead you marry algebra
An equation of partnership
New stresses multiply her storms
New threats to leave
Forever - forever free of
Love’s demands

Screams from the birthing bed
There’s the
head of a daughter
You hold her with new love
So strange, unknown, skinning knife sharp
This love……
You hasten to a toilet
To retch

A circle formed of childhood friends
Circled round a bottle Boys
Of aged Kentucky bourbon
For me it holds grave gravity
Drink a dram down my friends
Then another then another
Let us toast my dear dead Mother

A new job, new staff, new friends
Your marriage took a sideways slide
A big down and almost out
Employee Becky
Hands you her business card
Hand written- If you need anything-
Anything at all - call on me
Danger there……
And who doesn’t enjoy a little
Danger?

Do we write our own eulogies?
**** straight we do
Who better, huh?

So go fling some ash
Search my will for cash
Long ago
Such lies I wrote
Such praise I heaped upon
Myself
You may well wonder
Did they burn the wrong body?