You Want To Be a Poet

You want to be a poet? What are your credentials?

Well I speak and read and write.

I have a pen.

(I used to steal them in third grade)

I like paper and I know what the word "treacley" means.

I become angry with anyone or anything,

Righteously and indignantly.

My degree is in an unrelated field.

Played a little rock and roll.

I am an American and can be any damned thing I please.

I hear the muses whisper.

I despise the "workaday world" and other stultifying cliches

     about "the way it is".

I reinvent myself every day.

I write dance drink until I can't move.

Most poetry bores me.

I baled hay, smelled sweet clover in the dewy morn,

Smelled magnolia blossoms in the thick Texas air,

Drank moonshine,

Drove 95 mph,

Cried from broken heart over laughing women,

Walked home in the rain,

Narrowly escaped death more than once,

On the highway, in the river,

Shouted at the sky, danced in tribute to the moon and clouds,

Got on the bus,

Saw sunrise at 30,000 feet,

I hear violins, see shadowy figures, smell raspberries where there are none.

I get writer's cramp.

I drink at 3 a.m. and laugh at the radio.

I get up and go to work.

I go home and go to sleep.

I dream.

I don't need credentials.

I was born a poet.

I feel anti-social.

12-5-02

Mike Hill