I don't go looking for poetry

I don’t go looking for poetry.  Poetry comes at me hot. 

When I’m cornered in a chute with no excuse, nowhere to go, like when I’m trapped in the entry way of a closed mall on a rainy Saturday.  Then I pull out Walt’s Leaves or Frank’s Lunch from my pocket where I’ve been carrying it around for weeks because I should and because it fits into my coat pocket and because the cover is soft enough that I don’t mind raking my hand across it when I’m reaching for my gloves.

I pull it out and it grins its hot grin at me and dares me to open it, which I don’t want to do, but I do it anyway and words come spilling out all over me like hot coffee.  The sound of them hurts my eardrums.

It is like a branding iron that ties me to itself and singes me good with its marks. It burns words into me so that I can’t not think about them and it leaves them burning in my arms and back and even though I can’t see the burns, I can feel them.  They say themselves over and over in my head. 

They hurt me until I take off that poetry coat and hang it up in some closet and forget it. 

 

But Walt is waiting for cold weather or rain or the next time I get a ride somewhere.  He’s been waiting a long time but I guess he doesn’t mind waiting. 

LFM