Introduction/I Am the Poet

I am the poet!

I will exhaust you,
pulling you blind with sun in your eye
as I hold your sweaty hand,
careful not to let you slip but
making sure your grip is never complacent.

I am the poet,
he who speaks to generations,
words on paper to be treated
as guns in the hands of children.

I am the poet!
Broken universes collide
at the tip of my pen in scribbled lines,
men fighting for the power
of the apocalypse laureate.

I am the poet,
the word criminal and purveyor
of that black on white crime of ink on paper,
a crime committed to memory
and rehearsed at every opportunity,
a hate crime against the barren mind.

I am the poet!
My mind cums on napkins and notebooks,
legal pads and scraps of paper,
sticky thoughts illuminated
under black lights on black nights
alone in a bedroom.

I am the poet
and words flow under the door
like a light through cracks and depths
to make scurry unnamed species seldom seen.

I am the poet,
dear reader.
I speak to your children’s children’s children,
read by them in volumes
quoted as the words of the ancients of different eras,
different times and time again.