T'is a curious thing,
these verbal peddlers,
these tribal members,
famously well known to no one,
perhaps at best,
a kindred few, fellow-travelers.

Each a troop,
in the army of orphans,
bloodied, purple hearted,
word-wounded,
anonymous unto each other,
yet all bonded intimates,
in solitary struggle united,
yet sea-parted by the very nature
of the solitude of composition.

All poets are Cain scar-marked,
purposed for everyone to see,
a warning to the rabbled boors,
the imagination suppressors!

World:

cherish these flawed ones,
gentle these frail but gritty,
the Lord has tasked them
to be prophets in one tongue untied,
undo the strife of Babel's division.

Poets!

Be the harpooners
of the unexamined life,
with unfettered rhapsody,
comfort caress us,
exhort the loopy
to light their illusionary candles,
turn the sad eyed lowlanders
into crinkly eye-lined smilers.

With clinical observation,
dense and demanding,
make us laugh at
the comedy of our situation,
teach us our free-to-see peep show,
reveal, unseal us
with **** empathy!

For who's who in poetry
is all of us!
saviors and failures,
recorders and decoders,
night writers of the oohs and aahs
of dreams and nightmares.

When this poet cannot,
no longer, anymore,
taste his poems upon your lips,
keep your poems within his heart,
then he breathes no more,
becoming one who was, yet still is,
because of you,
because of poetry.