Some poets have degrees,
Be they Bachelors or Phds.
But a poet, a poet is really qualified by experience,
And the ability to distil language to the dance of written form,
To transpose observations into song.
Etching stretches of moments too short,
Into something long enough to match the longing for it.
Weaving yearning with touches of genius,
Abstracting epiphanies from cracks in the pavement,
Extending the halls of learning by
Stencilling truths onto toilet walls,
So that even to **** is to experience the profound.
A poet is one who can make meaning out of madness,
Pluck obscurities from the air, exposing the bindings of being,
Or explain how words, in their whirling make the world go round.
But a poet, a poet does not understand that ache inside,
That ache that drives them to write, to whisper and to yell
Words, metaphors and similies, in the constant attempt
To quantify that special kind of hell,
That haunts them, as ravings in their head,
That inspiration that is their constant torment.
And sometimes, sometimes its heaven instead,
But that’s when it’s hardest to write
Because suffering, when transformed to stanzas,
Is somehow easier to ignite
Than that intangible something we call joy.
For something as simple as a smile
Cannot be matched by any extravaganza
Of words no matter how we try.
But a poet, a poet will spend lifetimes trying
To describe that very sensation, that fleeting
Sense of something greater than oneself, greater,
Even than the offerings left in ink at the poet’s
Altar of a page.
And sometimes it will be so hard, this attempt to transcribe
Emotion into a form decipherable to others
That the poet will feel only rage,
And exhaustion,
Till even the point of the pen begins to expire
But a poet, a poet, even in the pits of despair,
Does not retire,
For there, lingering somewhere
Above in the air, is a glimmer of truth
Just waiting to be shared.
