Poets and Poetry

Poetry, - a sanguine sanctuary

Where unproven thoughts

May find release,

Through voice;

May be not silenced,

But be solaced

Without arousing

Counter-attack.

It's good for cowards

With heavy loads

Of fertile fantasy,

Who would run

If questioned,

Who would crumble if we stayed.

It's a place to be, to see

What grains of truth

We can extract,

And find escape

From heaps of thought

Which burden,

And useless piles

Of life-long fixities.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

Poet

The heart pours forth words,

When itself begs release.
'Tis good to express
Its needs;
But too incredible for words,
That clamouring needs
Concede to be contained
By quiet words.
Ah! There is probably a word
For that, too.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

Soft Regrets

I lose a line

Now and then

Of poetry

I almost wrote

And songs

I almost sang,

But didn't take the time.

I see at last, -

I lost that note,

Passed up some rhyme,

Or missed a bell

I failed to chime.

It is so much, too much

Like living all too fast, -

I bow my head to cry

And almost gasp.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

6-15-78

Poets are people

Who translate

    Staggering experience

         Into staggered

                Lines of word

In hopes of capturing there

The twist of the heart,

The surge of the mind,

The ache of

Unfilled needs.

Others, needing, too,

Endure the twists

The aches,

The overwhelming surges

Silently within,

But sometimes read

              The staggered lines

           For relief

     Through their eyes.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

I panic

Thinking

I have said

Too much

In verse.

My silent

Thoughts

Do not rehearse!

They spill! -

Reverberrate

And seem to

Shout it

Out.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

Tread softly -

It's my soul.

Well-trimmed verse

Entrusts itself

Unto

Your

Knowing

Heart.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

Writing a poem -

Too easy

And too hard.

Too easy to compose

Some words;

Too hard to expose

My soul

So easily.

_____ © Nellieanna Hay

7-8-72

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