Poem: “Write the Poem, Part III”

I decided not long ago to start posting poetry more consistently here on Medium because I realized how much I’ll regret it if I don’t.

I’ve got this gift, this blessing. My dad gave it to me and then I cultivated it for decades, mostly in the privacy of my bedroom and a tiny inner circle. And I feel charged increasingly to do more with it, for to fail to serve one’s gifts, or at least try, is far too sad a thing.

To watch the lights fade knowing one didn’t do what was within one to do, to exit unrealized, must be an excruciating fate. I suppose the only consolation would be that the horror is almost over.

Poetry is an infinite conversation playing out in the soul, and it is no less imperative than the conversations we have with our accountants, landlords, and plumbers.

There might be a few decidedly practical persons around who don’t need or care for it, but they’re probably not great company, and for the rest of us it’s medicine, a sacred salve. It describes and reflects us and in so doing stitches us back together.

I’ve always found sanctuary in poetry, whether I’m writing or reading. It’s an arbor under which to savor and rest in what is deep, away from the brutal angles and noise of the too fast day.

Some people say poetry is dead, that social media and GPT Chat have killed it. And yes, it’s true that the “poems” offered up on Instagram are banal, sentimental vagaries with spaces meaninglessly breaking up the sentences.

But poetry isn’t dead. Perhaps it’s hiding somewhere, exiled like Jacob, but it isn’t dead. And even if it is, some scribbling Jesus will resurrect it, for it’s as fundamental as breathing. Even now it rises from its tomb like Lazarus, eyes flashing.

Write the Poem, Part III

And when we are together
in the electricity of us,
write the poem.

Write it not in secret.
Trace your incandescent insides
into my palm,
make them intelligible
to a poet’s eyes.

Write without restraint.
I am no hostage of garlands and wine.
Write the horrors of your secret war.
Carve their frescoes across my chest,
and I will wear them like the medallion
of a murdered prince.

And when you are alone,
not a soul between you and the mountain,
and no one to meet along the bleached riverbed,
only you
to bear witness
to the low, hollow song
of the mourning dove
as she laments the waning
of all things,

write what cannot be written,
a poem without words,
issuing from
no poet’s pen,
a blinding fire
lit and quenched
in a durationless span,
alive beyond reckoning,
and already gone.