Living the Poem by Steve Robison

We see the whole of existence in a spring bloom. We touch where we are touched. We bleed, we cry, we laugh, we dance; we die a little inside with each new sunrise.

The words we weave extend from pain, from pleasure, from wonder, from confusion, from fright, from terror, from the endless crawling night. We peer at madness, laugh at brave sorrows, clung, released, discovered, saved. To the red flags we raise ours, white. Surrendering to the art that demands release, replacing uncried tears, supplanting the bold auburns of autumn’s shedding starkness.

We are art. We are song. We are verse, rhyme, reason, insanity, chaos — we are the burning mystic glow.

We are poets.

We chose not this path; it chose us. We merely yield to the unending song of the tenacious and tenuous muse. We walk not; we bow. Pen in hand. Subservient. Scribes of the beauty whose song must be sung, messengers languishing in the heat of July’s tempest.

We are poets.

We rise from the difference, take shelter in pain — standing alone in the void that remains.

We are poets.

On a dark night, she whispered, and drew down the shades. She spoke the soliloquy that called out her name. As darkness flooded. Sights vanished. No longer could she see her floral quilt, a gift from Aunt Millie. No longer could she see the oak brown carpet covering bare floor. No longer could she see even the window, the night beyond, her yellow bike in its stand under the pine deck, her means of escape. Nor could she see the stars, beyond conception but not imagination. Alone in her silence. Alone with new words. Resisting, resisting, begging sleep. Her words she knew not how to write. As sleep evaded. As fear persisted. As darkness overtook.

But the words needed writing. And so we wrote of her. Of her room. Of her sadness. Of her inability to catch the sleep she tenaciously sought. We wrote of her.

We are poets.

Observing, conceding, yielding. We are poets.

Only love is real; only hope sustains. But words, words, sweet blessed words. Words resonate. Words fill. Words tell. Words renew. Words. Sweet, blessed, words.

We cherish moments connecting with friends, with strangers, with lovers, found, lost, found. But more we cherish the moments alone. We cherish that which we need the most. To write. To pen the words that demand release. To tell of the fog-flooded courthouse where the judge prepares to announce his sentence. Life in prison. No parole. He murdered. He feasted on souls. A great crime. But not the greatest crime. Not to us. The greater crime is to leave words unsaid, to leave art unwritten, to deny the screaming whisper of the haunting muse.

We are poets.

We learn. We connect. We separate. We connect. We learn. From each moment, each interaction, each sensation, each feel, each touch, imagined or real. We learn. And we write.

We are poets.

We are poets.