Broken Words

A painful rough draft. A poem about what else, but poetry!

The Poetess
Valerie Owens

A hand sweeps across the page.
Ink, the blood of the soul, spurts across the pallid paper.
Words emerge,
awkward, jumbled,
and imperfect, rather the poetess herself.
Jagged sentences follow,
roughly arranged in fragmented lines.
Poetry rises, blatant and unsure,
from the silent cacophony.
Red ink flies,
slicing and dicing deformities.
Another attempt, and then another.

Poetry draws violently on the marrow of being.
Beauty is never guaranteed,
self satisfaction is a delusion,
perfection is a joke,
and no one listens anyhow.
But such is the burden and the blessing
of the poetess.
Like Divinity's beckon to Samuel,
the call comes again and again,
soft and familiar in the hollows of night.
The deluge of words cannot be dammed
and the poem must be.
Such is the poetess's charge.