by Patricia Watson

Created on: January 14, 2009

If I had a dollar, for every rhyming verse,

Loneliness would not reside,

Inside my empty purse.

Poets never really think, of monetary gain,

They only need their readers

To connect with angst and pain.

I will stop my poem at this point, and tell you how a poet really feels when he is writing. The angry poem is truly from the heart. Every starving rhymester has penned something truly vicious at some point. People will give accolades for the brilliance of his verse. The writer at this point, is in his dark place, upon having his umpteenth tome of verse rejected. Let's be honest, fellow poets...we want to make money at our craft. Unlike the author who writes a cohesive novel, a poet works hard to make as little sense as possible. The more chaotic the words are, greater is the chance we can con a publisher into thinking we are super intelligent.

Seriously, poetry is my passion. I think in verse and sometimes it just spills out of my mouth. For example, something as mundane as opening the fridge door and finding no food, would translate in my mind to the following:

Why oh why, do I stare into

This frozen, barren expanse

of nothingness.

Hunger resides inside my soul,

I long for that last piece of pie,

It is not to be.

Being a poet does not mean one has to be a gloomy Gus. I will admit that a little honest suffering really does produce some great poetry. The beautiful reward of writing verse is the literary freedom it allows us. We do not have to adhere to strict rules and regulations. Poetry is free to rhyme or just flow. It can make sense, or dissolve into someplace that has no meaning, but sounds great. Once I read a poem that was simply one word to a line and ran on for 30 lines. You can't train to write poetry, you either have it or you don't. I believe that I was composing verse in my mothers womb.

Oh vixen, why doth thou

Constrain me inside this

Fluid filled sac of life.

Why can't thou set me free,

From this prison inside of thee?

Okay, I really didn't write the preceding poem in my mothers tummy. But I had a chuckle writing it for you all to read now. You see what I mean about poetic license, it is a wonderful, freeing thing. There is a poet inside of everyone. Who hasn't written a limerick at one point in their life. And let's not forget the classic, Roses are red. I feel a poem bursting forth at this very moment, and with the readers permission, I will close with a verse.

Roses are red,

Poets are blue,

Go ahead, try it,

There's a poem inside you!

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