WHY NO ONE READS POETRY

…words weep onto the page

like tears too long restrained they stain

the reader with the poet’s pain      they burn

they ooze    they scar the skin deep

within they take the soul to places

it does not want to go   they make you

know the truth of things    how hearts

are broken     words are spoken

that destroy    they tell it

like it is      this thing

called poetry is harsh     is cold     is hot

is ragged as a beggar on a dark night

street    is wicked as a thief that steals

your innocence     the walls you’ve built

will crumble in the fire of its wrath

 

it speaks of hearts

that melt then bleed    abraded by the blade

that some call love     above all else

it speaks a kind of deadly truth

how time destroys the bloom

of youth

 

 

it steals your breath    admits that death

is real    forces you to feel    peel away

the layers you have hidden under   submit

to rage    and then admit the lies

you’ve told yourself when cowering

beneath the sheets

poetry tells us that

we live     we die    and dead

is dead       words implode

inside our head     and that     I think

is why

no one reads poetry      and so

this poem

a stricken bird         will settle weightless

to the ground     and die

without a sound…

Susan A. Katz (All rights reserved)

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