I want to write a poem
with rhythm and rhyme and cadence
and the carefully chosen word.
Expressing the inexpressible
with lines you read between.
I need to write a poem
to show who I am who I was and that I was here
and to communicate with the living
remember the dead
and greet the unborn.
A poem of subtlety of power of substance
of triumph of loss.
About things I don’t understand
like love and life and being and abstractions
that have meanings so imprecise
as to be meaningless.
I want to create and speak in word jazz.
I cannot write a poem.
I never remember the syllable patterns
for a limerick or a haiku or even a grook
and fear nothing so much as iambic pentameter.
I have nothing new to say,
nothing that hasn’t been said
better before
by others.
My life is just a life, my experiences just experiences.
A poem is too intimate too close
and I’d need to expose thoughts and feelings
that I do not know I have.
No, I cannot write a poem
yet I am at peace
because the poem I need is already
in the world.