October Poems 2024 >> why i write

A poem for each day of the month in which I was born
 
DAY 25
why i write
 
i write because life’s fires burn like hell,
singeing the hairs that crown my head and back,
while i am left outside the citadel,
confronted by time’s cunning almanac.
 
i write because my tongue is petrified
by ropes of metaphoric voicelessness,
whose strangulation pen will have defied,
where stand i unbereft of choicelessness.
 
i write because my raw blade seems too sharp
against the jugulars of provocateurs
who rip two score and seven strings from my harp
to field applause from spiteful rapporteurs.
 
i write when all the irony is gone
from sentiments that shock the intellect
with ribaldry from men who make a pawn
of innocence. when princes genuflect
 
to keep the status quo in rigid place,
i write the heck out of the awful stench
that holds some men superior by race,
while others suck salt underneath the bench.
 
i write the bitterness out of my wrath,
when ignorance holds fools subservient
to postures of pretentiousness. what hath
lack wisdom yet to do with divident?
 
i write when i am broken by desires
that find not fit fulfilment in the dreams
that crackle in the unrelenting fires
commissioned for the throating of my screams.
 
i write 'twixt narrow lines of poverty,
on hand-grenades, in trenches stained with blood;
i write to open doors of liberty
that mark the spot where braver men have stood.
 
i write, although my eyes can scarcely glimpse
the worn-out parchment that has borne my ink
these threescore years and ten, whence all my limps
have saved myself and others from the brink.
 
© Copyright 2024 October 25
by Clyve A. Bowen♫