Poet or Writer?

“You are truly a poet,” she said.

I’m not sure that I should take it as a compliment, he replied.

“It is! It is a compliment! What else could it be?”

A poet suffers all the time. I hate suffering. I hate pain. I hate everything that hurts. That’s why I also hate life. It’s complicated. I’m not a poet.

“You are! You are a poet! How can I prove it?”

I have at least one idea. But it’s unfair, especially to you.

“What is it? I can take it.”

One of my poems has to move at least one million hearts. I hope it’s a haiku. It’ll be remembered more. I prefer the haiku plus. It’s another story.

“A viral poem. An interesting idea. It surely happened before, on a different scale, yet with more worth. You have to move hearts.”

Luckily, they move already. I just need to make them take a childish skip.

“I told you that you were a poet.”

I'm certainly not. Shakespeare was a poet. We’re all the Bard’s forever amateurs. There is, of course, a certain number of descendants who are too numerous to name here like that. Dickinson comes immediately to mind. She already moved my heart and it’s still moving to her sway.

“OK! You’re just a writer.”

I actually prefer that. We, writers, suffer a lot but we also laugh, especially when we type. I laugh all the time. I’m laughing right now. Yet I was crying at the end of a previous line.

“You’re a writer alright. Poets rarely laugh. Life is not a laughing matter.”

I think that I typed quite a few funny haikus and other varied stories and therefore you’re right, I’m no poet. That’s what I was saying from the start. We’ve just wasted someone’s time.

“It’s OK. They’ll forgive you. Who’s going to hold a grudge at such a cute cat already dressed for Xmas?”

Peppermint.

“What about it?”

Let’s take a peppermint bath.

“You and peppermint! You’re in love with a plant.”

Please lower your voice. Cannabis is of the jealous kind. She’s God’s plant, after all. It’s better to stay safe.

...

Poetry: A Poetic Alexandrine

If someone told you your poetry was the best

You optimistically know they lied to your face

No one can be the best since Shakespeare went and messed

Your possibility of taking the Bard’s place

Many poets have come and gone too far away

Lost in a sonnet that sounded like a ditty

Some were ingenious some appeared to be coquet

There were even some who required some pity

Poetry is a naked woman to be dressed

With beautiful sensuous pussy-filled pert words

That can dress the Sun with breasts, the Moon is best blessed

Whether it is smiling or full of light and birds

Her heart is beating poetically as you dance

Slowly embraced on blue sheets showing her your stance

...

Poets Do Not Die: A Sonnet of Place

Poets do not die poets are replaced

often forgotten or simply displaced

Poets in this compact can be misplaced

rediscovered one April day someplace

Poets grapple to become a showplace

unless happy to appear anyplace

Poets are ample in any birthplace

all poetry can play from some sub-place

Poets are sometimes propelled to transplace

their unread poetry as a workplace

Poets may also impact a null-place

promptly disappearing in a swap-place

Yet Sir Shakespeare is performed everyplace

but no other poet meets that ‘speare’s place

...

Poets & Poems: In 6 6 6

Poets should not be lived

they should be met in the

evening at a book’s bend

The first 6 6 6 (Haiku Plus) was translated/adapted from the lyrics:

Les poètes, vois-tu, il ne faut pas les vivre.

Il faut les rencontrer le soir au coin d’un livre.

Serge Lama

Poems should not be read

unless the first four words

include love life or death