Plight of the Poet

 ...above page from the book below

Gaps gape; thought grasps at unshaped word like cats at butterflies

Messages at the mercy of the mind vex virile sighs

Caught like the land when night is spent before dawn’s splurge of light

The hand is poised but reticent to unclothe Soul to sight

A lone-wolf pioneer that plows plots pressed on middle-air

And who knows what thunders across the stage of soundless stare

The page, a patient friend suffers the brunt of bribes uncouth

And waits out wars that wage while whispers sculpt out ageless truth

A tempest through which thought must feel for a stable foothold

To draw from wells of ink that served earnest poets of old

Where Poet of Time’s Present Day strives to pay homage to

The hands that did not heave the pen away when they were blue

Distraction flirts and puts on skirts to lure ungoverned gaze   

Diligence takes Her by the chin to rein in hunger's blaze

The tumult that precedes tender surrender, not defeat

Makes stronger the defendant and the victory more sweet

Press on, poet, thy charge thou canst not freely disregard

Though unbeknownst to masses is the voyage of the bard

Through looming halls and forests walled with noises veiled in dark

Until the quill finds the inferno that ignites the spark

© Janet Martin