My beloved books sit

Huddled on shelves - shelves and shelves -

Thick spines thin spines snazzy spines bedraggled spines

Finger-worn with years of turning pages

From school days and formal tuition.

Or glossy new, recently acquired

Slim and shiny from fellow poets

Who share their words on stage or internet

Many - like me – self-published - unchallenged.

 

From these books so diverse

Poetry pours eloquently.

The light, the deep, the funny, the sad.

Easy reading on the whole.

But poems of rigid structure

From prior disciplines

Are worth the time and effort

To enjoy their elegance

Provoking beauty and thought

Out of metre and rhyme.

 

Poets like humour too.

They can be sly.

Like a fly in the butter

I admire a word whose position can

Confound the sense of syntax plan

And leave a phrase

On its fine sound preening

Quite ambiguous as to is meaning.

 

Poetry thrills me, the linking of minds.

But - ah me – ah me -

My work is mute - unread - unsung – unnoticed.

I need some guts!

Plain old Nordic/Celtic stone bashing!

See, here, World! I want to be noticed.

Now!

And a hundred years from now!

I don't lack insight – sensitivity – skill -

ambition – arrogance -

Just marketing!

I could really use an agent.