As a Poet

For all my fellow poets and writers and critics.

As a Poet

 

As a poet my job is too feel

Every spasm of a useless situation

And to document a reality in its most abstract form

To commit sins where practical people prefer not to belong

 

As a poet I need to memorize the procedures

And modus operandi of living and dying

Simultaneously in many different forms

People expect me to create an illusion of the known

And call it unknown in their own known language

 

As a poet I must learn to infuse snowfall

In a famine and drought, light a cigarette in a oscillating

Sea storm with my final matchstick, sing songs with

The best devils in town; sleep with sick women

And impress the beautiful ones with act of being profound

 

I must live only with the hollowness of my own being

Marry the harshness of my silent sentences

And die when others around me have finished enjoying

The final chop of criticizing my human habits and

Normal

Ways and methods I use to get around the city streets

 

As a poet I’m at least sometimes allowed to be a regular human

In a horde of otherwise excused wordless normal people.

 

Author's Note

This is an unusual poem from me, I know. Hardly any visual effect or onomatopoeia. But this my uttermost personal form of existential confession. Hope you'd like it.

Reviews

[Mike Espinosa]

This is an interesting poem. You come across and sincere in your description of who you are.

However, your breaks feel a bit awkward in some of the stanzas. When I read the breaks, I am cutting off in the middle of phrases that shouldn't be. I stumbled a few times through this piece because of the breaks. The one that I suggest immediate edit is in the second to last stanza, "The final chop of criticizing my human habits and / Normal / Ways and methods I use to get around the city streets."

Also, if you are going to use a period at the end of the poem, you should use punctuation throughout, as a matter of uniformity. Either whole poem with punctuation or whole poem without. Half and half seems a little sloppy.

Overall, this is a fine poem. Good job.

[St.Jimmy]

you are a philosopher
you pretty well described the life of a poet
I especially love these lines
Marry the harshness of my silent sentences
And die when others around me have finished enjoying
these are the beautiful lines
a poet has left with no worth when the people around him will no more enjoy his words
the one think which I don't like in this poem that you had given some unusual breaks in the poem which broke my continuity of reading many times
all in all I think this poem is outstanding
~Aaradhya

[Gandré]

I totally loved this poem. You said, how it is - poetically wonderful, in ancient Greece, poetry was revered as the authoritative expression of sacred myth and traditional wisdom (and we look where Greeks are today.. tragical). I loved the last lines - As a poet I’m at least sometimes allowed to be a regular human / In a horde of otherwise excused wordless normal people.

[Gomer LePoet]

Ishan, in general I like this a lot. It is a different direction for you. I did also find it a bit choppy though. Good concept though and good write.

[hanzabonanza]

Wow! Amazing poem- soo true...you have a wonderful command of language and vocabulary you make it seem so natural and flowing :)

[Devons]

I think this shows fathomless depths of the artist's vocation. It is a purpose born unto him and not applied for through normal channels. It alienates him and separates him from normal existence. Whilst he ponders and examines the whole 3-D panorama of the human condition, humanity all around him carries on as normal. It is often a thankless, undervalued, and misunderstood task, but it is a gift that he must use and cannot give back.

"People expect me to create an illusion of the known
And call it unknown in their own known language"

..These words depict part of his complex situation quite profoundly, if not a little humorously. Very good lines.

And the last excellent words I shall quote remind me of an interview with Peter Sellers, who said that he saw himself as a 'blank canvas'.. and that he was nothing unless he painted upon this space that was his personality. So that without it he was nobody...

"As a poet I’m at least sometimes allowed to be a regular human
In a horde of otherwise excused wordless normal people."

This is a very high standard of intelligent work.

[Samuel Ferris]

i dig it, definitely sympathize as well.

[Truly Ross-Wisehart]

As a poet I’m at least sometimes allowed to be a regular human
In a horde of otherwise excused wordless normal people.

....and then run right back to the world to which I belong!!

This was very good. I liked it very much!

~True

[zombiikillah666]

*snaps*
*inhales cigarette*
i like this...mhm :D

[Brokensoul]

straight from a poet's heart ! bingo!

[Annette Jay Sweeney]

I think it's always healthy to do something that deviates from your norm. It opens your world of writing and makes other things possible. I enjoyed this. It's nice to know how other writers feel some of the time.