Here’s something I wrote a couple weeks ago. I read it in Little Rock & Hot Springs.
…
To poetry,
My newfound love.
Sent down to me,
From up above.
You far surpass my time with prose,
In helping to defeat my foes.
In you I find a peace of mind,
The kind I cannot leave behind.
When up I feel empow’red to share,
My optimistic soul laid bare.
When down you give a warm safe place,
From which to vent and hide my face.
You let me play with words again,
And bring me back where I began,
To where I first found love of pun,
Before I’d met my friend, John Donne.
For poetry is real to me,
With paradox and irony.
Like simple truth conveyed in words,
Yet patterned after singing birds.
Sometimes a crow, that wretched noise.
As if alerting all the boys,
To some new meal or hawk to fight,
Now show some courage, prove your might.
At other times a lonely sound,
As if a dove were to be found,
Behind these lines of rhyming verse.
Where ev’ry turn reveals a curse.
Yet here’s the one true poet bird,
Above all others, she is heard.
Observing well, she makes her call.
The mockingbird, the best of all!
Taking what she sees in culture,
Loudly she proclaims her sculpture.
At other times she just don’t care,
Mocking all with pomp and flare.
Yet don’t ignore her chosen words,
For even though from other birds,
They come to her by her own choice,
And in this way she finds her voice.
She doesn’t mock to scorn or hate,
But for a larger point to make.
In mixing words in time with rhyme,
She feels set free and in her prime.
So when you hear, to get the gist,
You must observe each subtle twist.
For even words you’ve heard before,
Her mouth may make to mean much more.
Now let me speak just one more time,
To this love of rhythm and rhyme.
To the queen of complex notion,
Who sings aloud with pure devotion.
To Poetry, I’m glad we’ve met.
I think our love may blossom yet,
Into the sweetest smelling rose,
Much sweeter than forgotten prose.
Jack Somers 