Mirror pond

You’ll find the poets everywhere 

(please take a look, try not to stare) 

and each year many more appear 

there’s more to read, so much to hear 

There are poets in every shape and size 

so many styles, they’re on the rise 

But do their words extend beyond

each poet's emotional mirror pond?

And oh, there are so many bards 

sat picking through the rusty shards 

of broken words in breakers’ yards 

There’s painful heartache on the cards 

(by cards, I mean those small cue cards 

the cards by annotations marred 

with notes revealing mental scars 

all scribbled down in late night bars)

If you listen to a poet recite 

their life through stanzas, then you might 

intuitively gain some small insight 

into what drives that artist to write 

of personal turmoil, dark and light 

and broken hearts lost in the night 

details of every private fight 

in public acts of black and white 

See, poetry is no mirror pond 

it starts like this, but soon moves on 

The words a poet pens take flight 

if others read them with insight 

and if those verses so inspire 

then other words will soon transpire, 

as self-expression, like wild fire 

provokes our literary desire

Steve Wheeler © 3 September, 2021

image source