There’s No Room for Petty Poets

A poem

Envy, no pettier sight — green to my gills when reminded of a man who made it and I’m still rolling dough, word putty, publisher submissions after a 14-year hiatus from trying to crack the code of making it as a poet —

Odd, cracked egg oozing energy of weird animosity in Saturday’s writing group: Who are you? We don’t see this from you. Be happy. Everyone deserves to be heard.

Yes, but let my jelly donut envy ooze for a few minutes while I tick through the boxes of why this doesn’t even make sense.

That damn tiger of comparison, scratching its claws on my skin. Envy’s not a pretty game and there’s no room for petty poets.

Straighten up, shoot straight, aim high. Rise to the top with the others. Cream like this will rise, cloudpuffs — pastries of poetry. I’ve held onto poems’ rough edges until my 40s, past the age of ego, envy, and greed — shouldn’t it be?

Go out into that good writer's world and write. Clack of fingers to keys to scream to screen. Let words breathe magic into truncated days I’ll never get back —

the days I turned my back on poetry, creatives, vagabonds, and dreams; adrift in the grit sandy beach and ocean waves lapping.

Back now smearing lines and singing graces melding words and books and clues. We get our turn or not.

A candle lit. A flame licked with the spit of a tongue. And, that’s that. Over is the act played to day’s dear end. Insecurity stopped in its tracks.

Deer prints, innocent in the mud, dry in the winter air. The chill is better.

Casting off envy, insecurity there are better blankets to wrap oneself in.

Thanks, Jay Sizemore for reminding me with your poems that poetry can takes twists and turns, be abstract and real.

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