Waking Up

 

Poetry is hunger and protest.

Not pretty sounds

but a howl

a scowl

a wake up call for a drunk

in a hotel with

pretty lights and lies

and a roulette table

that never pays out

yet, keeps going round and round and round.

 

Poetry is a cry, a picture

that hopes to make the world

ashamed

that hopes to make the world,

even one man

come out of that hotel

and into the sunlight

of   acceptance

and each moment thereafter

good

and each day thereafter

a thought of the good.

 

Poetry is one hand slapping

the face of mankind.

(and that’s why it endures)