We are all human beings
We all have our own lives
And different ways we live them
But each one of us is a writer
And this poem is for all of you
All of you who have virtues and use them in your writing
Those who use flashbacks and revisit mental photo albums
Beginning the story from the middle for that’s usually where you mind is at
Looking back then looking forward
Studying the past so you can be ready for what is to come
Recording catastrophes with a number two pencil
Tales and blurbs of tragedy
Caused by love or the lack there of
Rewards and punishment
Self-reliance and self-fulfillment
We are mere narrators
Humble, maybe unreliable
Equipped with numerous devices
Ironic Paradoxes
Red herrings
Fortuitous plot twists
Metaphors
Allegoric hyperboles
Analogies
Oxymorons and onomatopoeias
We sling Chekhov’s gun like bandits of literacy
We’re visionary revolutionaries
Revolution of the mind, body and soul
Changing ourselves and examining who and what we are
To become what we are destined to be
The best
Rejecting convention
Building our own paths
That lead to cliffhangers
Romantic lust
Comedic affairs
Dark massacres
Spiritual healing
Religious speculation
And the questioning of the way we, the people are being governed
We use the tools we are giving to sculpt new art that the world can stand in awe of
Personification
Symbolic imagery
Practicing pastiche with respect
Dionysian imitatio
Surreal reality
Defying mortality
Reiteration and retort
Using nature to express emotion and thought
Doubts and fear
Opposites
Morals and ethics
Satisfying curiosity
Parodying what we see
Embellishing just a little
We us word play to dive deep into the topic of conscious, subconscious and unconscious thought
Using satire to poke fun at the human condition, its senses and perception of the universe to get readers thinking
Expressing our anger, our boundless joys
Desiring unknown pleasures
Seeing past the fallacies put before us
We write with great candor about war, personal conflicts, and self-abuse
With hinting undertones to give these ideas a second thought
We write of the supernatural, metaphysical mysteries
Outlandish, obscure mind boggling theories
As the clock ticks too fast for us and the characters we’ve created
Demolishing the fourth wall with a sledge hammer of defamiliarization
Epiphanies in a parking lot
Speaking in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd person
Using fun things like anagrams and palindromes
Candy for the lovers of such things
Spontaneity is an understatement
Nonsense is an insulting overstatement
Absurdity seems to fit just right
We are chameleons
We can write in various forms
Streams of gratifying consciousness
Brilliant prose
Beautiful poetry
And chose to use or merely acknowledge the ways to achieve these forms
Rhetoric, rhythm and rhyme
Meter and mora
Conceit and consonance
Assonance
Intonation
Working with phonaesthetics
And accenting aesthetics
A poem can or could not be organized as such
If we want to get technical about it
We have a poem
With a number of verses
And in those verses
Are lines
And those lines might rhyme
And have a meter or rhythm
Stressed or unstressed syllables
In contrast to that we may write
Without all of that and use emotion
Feeling and structure our work with what we feel is the best way
Line breaks
Pauses and puns
Silly similes
Ambiguous antonyms
Intonation, linguistics
Fight against the fascists of grammar and conservative correctness
So, in the end we are writers of a rainbow kaleidoscope forms, devices, ways and ideas
But we alone are the ones who make the world think
Make it move
Revolt
Renew
Learn
Look back
Remember
Cry
Smile
Forget
Ease
Write my friends write until your mind explodes and your fingers bleed
Read, read and become inspired
Even if what you’re reading is bad cheese
Forget getting published it’s the writing that matters
Disregard the off-putting, critical chatter
And if you think no one reads
Than be the seed and sprout a tree of astounding artistry
And let’s begin a new movement composed of ideals that will hold true forever
I might be preaching to the choir but it must be said that poetry; literature isn’t dead