I’ve Heard Some Poetry

I’ve heard some poetry

Poetry of mothers fathers daughters

Poetry of workers students elderly youth

Poetry of the factory the ghetto the suburbs the office

Poetry squealing defiant beat down exposed whimpering in defeat and laughing last

Poetry loud obnoxious lively and rude

Poems that stretch across the tapestries of human imagination

Poems that are music

Poems with no rhythm and no name

Poems read but not spoken

Poems spoken from the heart

Poems that tell the truth of human dreams

Shattered and collected like swept up glass into dusty bins

Poems for a better world

For environmental sustainability

For gender equality

To call out abuse

Exploitation

To throw a life raft

Drowning

in the grinding banality that crushes souls

You matter

I hear you

Poetry

I want to yell out yes

Poetry

Make me cry kind of

Poetry

Doctors office waiting for death kind of

Poetry

Self obsessed poems

Effervescent poems

Pretentious poems

And the simple

And plain

Poems

Poems that scream out a prayer

Hand in hand inhale exhale existence poems

Afraid of death poems

Numb poems that break free to feel

Poems that wander around because they can’t say what’s real

Poems that lash out aimlessly

Poems of desire

Poems of dreams differed

Poems of study effort and degrees

Poems of expectations dashed

Poems of life force energy

Poems of expression in the stultifying silence

A white flag

The final hope before complete surrender

The voice of the muffled

The description of feelings

The song of the broken

The last free thought of the brainwashed and indoctrinated

The hope of a new day

Poetry