poetry is like a gypsy

[revolutionR]

my original inspiration to become a poet
was to be able to speak my truth
coming from a real need to exercise
my right of freedom of speech
the sense of which came from
the urgent feeling that if I did not use it
I would lose it

but these words cannot give a real sense
of the way this oriented in me at the time
that I realized that I was meant to be a poet
just that out of this were certain struggles
with my sense of self and my ideal of art

from that comes a rush of impressions
about how art and self create from the raw
materials of the world around us
and what we are given to believe about that
to me poetry has always been a path into a
kind of difficult knowledge about how language
informs us and also keeps us disinformed

so poetry is always playing between what we know
and what we don't know, it can make us see things
that the powers that be don't want us to see
poetry is like a gypsy that travels the back roads
and takes the long way around to the unholy city
poetry will pick your mental pockets
and read your fortune while doing it

[judih]

"poetry will pick your mental pockets
and read your fortune while doing it"

absolutely nails it

[saw]

poetry ( and art) can often enlighten like a lecture could never get to.....agree with judih, terrific ending.....the dagger of metaphor

[revolutionR]

Glad you like...I guess I was kinda thinking of Rimbaud's 'thief of fire" which really is a metaphor for the mysterious way poetry comes to us, or something like that.

[dadio]

Nail on the head with this fine poem