Poem: The Thirst For Poetry

The Thirst for Poetry

At times I have immersed myself in poetry

As if I were diving into a lake

Fully cognizant of my existence

In the pools of beauty

But unconcerned about anything

Except the waters of soothing calm.

Each day I try to capture a drop 

Of that lake—to just take a sweet taste—

And let the romance overtake me.

For the most part these days

It’s just a glimpse into a droplet

Of a much larger body so fluid,

Not stiff and clumsy like my aging body.

Sometimes the reality of my day to day

Eclipses that great body of water

So that I hardly see the Frosts,

The Cummings, the Hughes, the Plaths,

The me that longs to drink forever 

From the lake—no, sea—of poetry

So that I’m left with the musty scent

Of used books and the scribblings

Of troubled minds, adventurous minds,

Just human minds moldering

In a dried out bed shrunken to cracked mud

Empty of metaphor, meaning, even the lists

Of a Whitman singing America.

But even Homer’s unfaithful Odysseus

Adventured across the seas

Only to find, after all those years,

His ever faithful Penelope.

So I will continue to pray for rain

To use again in a poetic refrain.

September 2023

About This Poem

I honestly don't remember what caused me to write this poem, except the fact that I feel like I never get enough poetry. I love it and, in spite of feeling I don't get enough, read and write it every day. But there is just so much. And maybe I'm just being like Odysseus, adrift on the sea looking to find my faithfulness in a single poem? I don't know.