English teachers often hearken back to simpler days

And swoon over Shakespearean verse

But the Bard’s sonnets often put my mind in a haze

His archaic words scorning me like a curse

 

But while I was bound to that classroom

Traipsing down the path of prose

I tumbled into poetry’s relentless vacuum

And never again arose

 

Now my mind is feverish and scrambled--

Pentameter, stanzas, and rhyme!

I have conquered where I once blindly gambled

With my precious words and time

 

I take the title of poet

Not just to share my art

To be a poet is to serve

And I serve those with wounded hearts

 

Those trapped by a failing system

Those suffering at the hands of their fellow man

I write to share human wisdom

I write to take a stand

 

To me, poetry means nothing

If it does not serve humanity

 

To me, poetry means everything

If it leads people to serve one another