I’ve often wondered, you know

what they are really like

these elusive, reclusive versifiers

Too bad I can’t fire up the remote

go to the poetry channel

then watch the all telling documentary

So, I guess I’ll simply have to wonder

about the veiled rites and rituals

behind their literary enchantment

Do poets travel alone like noble, solitary bards

or gather in flocks, herds, or prides

and it’s covertly called “a reading of poets”

When it comes to mating is it

iambic pentameter foreplay

tickling punctuation

drawn out spacing

lingering

licentious

line breaks

Then

crescendoing twitch and stutter

sputtering ink

sheets of wet, dripping parchment

feathering to the floor

in a heaving pile of

sighs

While rearing their young

do they begin nursing them on

Shelley, Keats, and Bryon

then shift to more erudite delights

Hoagland, Collins, and Bukowski

when they’re old enough

for more solid things to chew on

Behind their gifted poeting

do they sit on Tuscan terraces

gaze upon clear Italian pools of reflection

sipping hot licorice tea

peering at the world

through forever

kaleidoscopic spectacles

You might ask what prompts

such wild poetic imagings

all I can say for certain is

when adrift in their verses

I tingle from within

as their souls brush mine

But sadly, I fear their reality is much, much

more prosaic

littered and mired with real jobs, bills, doubts,

and neuroses

just like me

Secret Lives of Poets
By: Mark Melanson