Dare to Leave Footprints

For me poetry is a chance to capture bare handed the thorny butterflies of ugly fleeting feelings                                    
A way for me to deal with terrifying emotions and not just tamp them down                        
To face the cracked, chipped mirror of horrid deformity that perfectly reflects what I have to force myself to see                
                                     
To bare myself by lying naked upon the linen white page,          
Cathartic, high wire therapy for whole circus tent to see      
   
Let you have a front row seat while I feverishly write and riddle myself with hand drawn tattoos in permanent ink                                                  
                                   
I know my poetry is warped, so like the fractured and splintered man who penned them, a work in progress that I may never get around to finishing                                    
                                 
Until recently these words were just cloistered, squirreled away, hidden in old leather bound journals and camouflage folders on my sequestered drives                                  
                                 
Then I literally stumbled upon this deep underground, I stepped upon the subway car that led me to this pungent, trash filled, and so poorly lit ghetto                                    
                                     
I smiled at the chance to mingle, flirt, kibitz and converse with other scarred and flawed Bohemians, denizens in this dank fallout shelter that protects us from all the mediocrity, superficiality, and cliché above ground                                   
                                     
Like a nervous schoolboy on his first day at a new, wicked reform school ...                                                
                                     
When entering other's poetic gardens, I don't tiptoe and sneek a peek                                    
I tread carefully, savor your words with genuine interest and literary empathy                                    
                                     
Searching for authenticity, connection, ulgy-beauty, and that so elusive truth                                    
                                     
I so admire that you labored hard wrestling the demons, crafting the words, and carving the page at times with a blunt charcoal pencil                                    
                                     
Knowing oh so well it takes true courage to hang your words out there for others, twisted peers, to see, critique, and criticize                                    
                                     
So, I always leave my commentary footprints, not a sycophant just liking everything                                    
                                   
But sharing with you what I liked and, more important, felt                                    
Affirming you as an artist, your work, and our tortured creativity                            
                           
So I wait, sipping Starbucks venti dark roaste (cup number three) staking out the mailbox, hoping for a letter, thoughtful, soulful words from others marooned in this darkest, lonely exile                          
                           
Most days the mailman never comes, no comments ...                          
                           
But every once and a while, the wax sealed communique arrives. Mostly encouraging comments or brief, typed camaraderie                                   
                                     
It is these rare gifts and my obsessive, driven need for self expression that keep me kicking around the old, vacant neighborhood                                      
                                     
To those of you who only read ... I'd love to see your footprints