Stop Writing Poetry

A friend of mine (hi, Paul!) recently held an anti-poetry evening with some like-minded fans of verse (sporting a “Poetry is Shit” t-shirt) – it’s quite fitting then that I should stumble upon this little poem that I quite like. As with most poems that I’ve neglected in the past, I don’t truly recall what manner of hard times or thoughts spurred me to write this, but I like it all the same.  I might even read this to myself when I am old.

I came into this life I love a month or two before today,

Exposed to prose and treated to a wealth of rhyming repartee,

I grew, I knew, to woo and do as hopeless men are oft to do,

To be romantic in this frantic world so numb and overdue.

A week ago I wrote in verse, in pretty pieces on a page,

I wrote of love and ever-more, despite my green, untrainèd age.

I prayed in poems, sang in sonnets; lyrics trickled from my pen.

It worked a day, then went away, and threatened not to come again.

Yesterday I needed, pleaded, grieved and cursed the stars above,

Yesterday, I add, I ached and quaked from death of yester-love.

If I could see myself as then, pathetic victim of the heart,

I’d pity him a second, then direct him to rethink his art.

Today I live, as ever did, albeit without poetry,

I even love another, though I doubt the love she holds for me.

Adult, I go, I row and row along a placid, static stream,

It fairs me well, this numbing hell, though truth to tell – I never dream.

Tomorrow, row, and tow, and slow, and go along and long for naught,

And be contented, settle, (better things, be gone) have what I’ve got.

I’ve chosen to live in this way, this day-by-day, this underwhelm,

And look again at yesterday, when love and laughter held the helm.

If I could see myself as then, pathetic victim of the heart,

I’d smile in understanding that emotion only comes from art;

The art of living, and of loving, and of hurting, and of pain;

I’d lift him up, this little pup, and tell him: darling, write again.