I Thought That Poetry

I thought that poetry

was not enough, soldering sound

into the circuitry of meaning,

a soldier of the soul's campaign to know itself

pressing my flowers in the folds

of other people's brains—an anti-thief

stealing in to pollenate their thoughts

with grains of my embattled hope—

mining the ephemera of minds

smelted and cast into ingots of image,

a sculptor of subconscious pain and pleasure

peening inner surfaces to pebbled

textures of thought—a vandal-artist

spraying Guernica on your mother's wall

with stolen cans of PBR;

not enough that it could be

the end of all, the story of the story

never told but felt and lived,

the author in absentia on permanent retreat

sending coded messages to warn

the generation next—a propheteer

auctioning the truthfulness of death

with metaphors of holy lies—

giving the ascetics emerald alms

to swallow and enlighten from within,

a savior of the script, a prompt in the nave

whispering lines before they are forgotten

scrolls of dust—a future-critic

closing down the show before it opens

with spoilers in the final verse:

but no, enough itself is not enough

to hear the song above the clang of chains,

the keening of the sea.