If you write [type] words
in a particular form,
from a 26-letter contingent
it may be called a poem,
and if you write what may be called a poem
are you thereby perhaps may be called
a poet?
If said words
are just words
and not a poem
if said writer
of said words
is just a doodling sketcher,
just playing around layering letters
just making sound/ in her mind/ in her spare time
and not a poet.
Then who is qualified?
Is it a permission from the gods
is it a loquacious deity who bestows this rod?
Is it the scribe who imbibes the title of his own accord?
Is it bestowed by the father, an inheritance passed to sons of gentlemen?
Oh, the baggage of the label!
This apprehension
to title
this aversion
to inviting judgment
evoking potential failure
from a critic's scornful bite
from the sneer of the loose-leaf rabble.
I am
a writer
who writes words in form,
I am an artist who declares
these words are mine
and now,
(in humility,
in trepidation,
in star-crossed admiration,
in gaze-averted supplication)
I whisper, I say
I am a poet.
I rhyme rhymes
with my heartbeat
I take time
to defeat
the scourge of nonsense
the dribble
the counterfeit
to be real
authentic
to settle the score with the metal of my sword
Words will win in the end
they are why I was born
To know and speak to the Logos of Life
the Word of God made flesh
and forever fully alive
What will suffice
but to take my daily rhema
and release
to encounter Spirit within me
and plunge deep beneath
inward and toward
the jealously yearning One,
consumed with zeal for His temple begun
in me,
completed, sozoed, set free
to be a life-speaking poet
His emissary.
So turn up the volume
and set your readers aright
this poet is loosed
and she's gonna write.
