My task as a poet is to

write something like the truth

while weaving it with enough fiction

to make myself seem

bigger than life or

maybe that's a lie.

 

Maybe my job is to tell the details

and intricacies of my life in such depth

that it grabs onto your heart and pulls you

into the void the sits my inside

my chest where nothing but despair

and occasionally the feint flame of love

exists.

 

You get to watch the caverns walls

shed water and occasionally a stalactite

gives in to gravity and falls to the floor

like so many poor and forgotten memories,

but nothing much lives in there,

at least not for long.

 

We poets try,

by spewing over pages and computer screens

with the hope that something will catch your eye

and you will come and sit with us at least for awhile

and let us into your heart

and give us the attention we desire,

or maybe we just need to write what we do,

it's pushed forth like a volcano explodes

lava and ash pushed through the atmosphere and

any hole that is available,

much like my memories of some of the ones,

and afterwards we lie dormant,

spent.

 

Mostly,

poetry is an act of failure,

I try to describe the infinite in finite symbols,

these semi-useful words,

in an attempt to record events

and initiate the desired emotions,

and sometimes I succeed,

surely sometimes I succeed,

but I also fail often,

and that's the beast of poetry.