Romeo and Juliet Act 5

Poetry

by Nikki Giovanni

poetry is motion graceful (enjambment )
as a fawn,
gentle as a teardrop,
strong like the eye
finding peace in a crowded room.

we poets tend to think
our words are golden
though emotion speaks too
loudly to be defined
by silence.

sometimes, after midnight or just before
the dawn,
we sit, typewriter in hand,
pulling loneliness around us,
forgetting our lovers or children
who are sleeping,
ignoring the weary wariness
of our own logic,
to compose a poem.
no one understands it.
it never says "love me" for poets are
beyond love.
it never says "accept me" for poems seek not
acceptance but controversy.
it only says "i am" and therefore
i concede that you are too.

a poem is pure energy,
horizontally contained
between the mind
of the poet and the ear of the reader.
if it does not sing, discard the ear
for poetry is song.
if it does not delight, discard
the heart for poetry is joy.
if it does not inform, then close
off the brain for it is dead.
if it cannot heed the insistent message
that life is precious.

which is all we poets
wrapped in our loneliness
are trying to say.

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