Poetry Inside

There’s poetry in each of us

Buried deep by life’s distractions,

which accumulate

like thick-witted plaster

densely layered and papered over;

poetry residing at our core

obscured by self-delusion;

those dreams we honor

like hollowed-out rituals

in which we’ve stopped believing.

Sometimes life’s jarring dislocations

-- its jagged edges --

rents the paper, blisters the paint,

revealing something ethereal

exposed like a frayed wire

electrifying the source,

the poetry in each of us,

– call it inspiration –

compelling us to speak plainly

of death, of hurt

and suffocation,

and sometimes

of birth,

of love,

or even profoundly simple things,

like words

of affection

that give us pleasure.