Mentor, From Seuss, To Cliche, To Me

back when words were nothing
but tools to pry the undergarments
from a woman that didn’t understand
poetry.....  
 
scratch that
 
I think women have poetry scribed
into their bones
coursing through their veins
as if tundras
star filled skies
and grass spun daydreams
are in their DNA
 
back when I didn’t understand  
poetry
back when words were harsh
a dialect of cunt and fuck
and the rhyme
oh the incessant repeat
of monotone beats  
and metre was a measure
I didn’t understand (still don’t)
 
she poured effort  
and encouragement into a driftless
rhymer of sad prose  
pump and dump erotica
and shitty grammar
 
as if there were
cordant notes of beauty
amid the discord
as if between the untuned strings
and fumbling fingers
that beneath it all
was music
a voice
that deserved to be heard
 
so with magic  
in her words
guided a lost boy
into art
hack and slash words
into a semblance of place
time
order
 
into words that spoke
and meant more
than two-dollar platitudes
 
with bluesy tunes  
scent of old books  
and knowledge that flowed
 
I say thank you
in my own clumsy way
more coherent than I used to be