OpenLinkNight: what it is & a game of checkers

neon sign, Roanoke, VA

i had this epiphany, sitting
on the couch:

     never let words
     get in the way
     of what you are trying
     to say

& wrote it down, in my notebook.
right next to another:

     i am
     nothing
     without proof
     of life

& even a thought in the margin
on a title, 'My middle name is Timothy
not Thomas' ~ a little personal truth
emphasizing the spiritual slant
of 'i am'

but feared it might overpower the zen
in it, and doubt scares many when you start
asking for proof --- it sucks

not many think
about what they're leaving behind, until late
in life --- i let a kid in class flip through my book
of rhymes & out of all of them,
he picked it out

'you wrote this?'

'yeah, don't know what to do with it yet.'

'what's it mean?'

'i dunno yet, you tell me.'

& he couldn't yet, but wrote it down
to process later, like i did when i got it
thinking it needed more, some fancy words,
slant rhymes or meter to make it meatier
or palpitate its heart, but in the end it's
just words, an add on, a pretty bow,
a fancy cup for a man dying of thirst
when all he asked for is water

making it more about me
than him anyway ~ and we
have enough of that.

OpenLinkNight @ dVerse Poet, opens at 3 pm....so you have time, go write a poem, put pen to paper and birth words...it doesn't matter what they are...well we know what they are...poetry. See you then.