hearing Shakespeare,
my-own-voice
crack'd, stilted,
stuttered-shut by the
mocking silence of still
waters on the brain

poverty exposed,
raggedy verbiage for a
raggedy man's
frayed fringed garments

ashamed of
every word I ever wrote,
not even ten survivors,
not enough to pray collectively
for muse~forgivement

****,
hush me not,
no chairs turned,
the public has not texted,
new tattoo:
write on for audience of one

a necessity, a life sentence

a single topic, a subject,
a life, mine,
still unmastered,
decades of trying

poverty exposed, unmasked
for what it is worth,
or what it is not