The Mentor and the Page

August 17, 2010
One and the same?

The old poet licked his thumb and turned
his crinkling face to face his page,
catechism burning his lips.

Teacher, when will I be a poet?

When all is beauty and grotesque in the same syllable.
When question marks become statements;
     commas, colons, and periods the movement
     of your chest, your lungs, your diaphragm.
When each breath taken becomes a metaphor
     for each breath you take
     and your lover merely a symbol for love.
When every heartbeat pumps a slant rhyme.
When what you see is what you hear;
     what you smell what you feel.
When every moment becomes a title, each experience a line, all memory a stanza.

The aged wordsmith pricked his thumb and bled,
an inkling of narrative published
on the novice' ear.

But Sir, when shall I become a poet?

When the space between the lines blurs with the ink upon the paper.
When your limbs grow into trees rooted in the heart of the earth
     and toner circulates through your veins and your blood speaks from the ground.
When the secrets of the universe are inadvertently hidden
     between the lines for everyone to see.
When rhyme needs no reason; no, nor reason to rhyme.
When time is not measured in meter or minutes,
     and timeless morphs to cliche.
When your only rush comes from the cutting of words into lines
     on the mirror surface of the page to be snorted through a gutted pen
     directly to you brain.

The wizened bard flicked his thumb and fingered
the bleached page before which
each penman bows his head.

Father, I want to be a poet. When?

When nothing is sacred.
When everything is sacred.
When black and white are just shades of grey with an e.
When gray with an a is merely the merging of black and white.
When the footnote leads the header.
When your pen instructs the paper
     and the poem becomes your teacher.
When your inquiry is no longer when
     but why.

In anguish, the young poet selected all.
And when questioned concerning his intention,
clicked “YES” and cursed all to the Trash Bin.