Why a poem should come to be at all

Why a poem should come to be at all the word questions & the poet voices no answer until the word becomes form, a woman by choice, letting down her hair to dance, seeking not in the least or the most romance-- only to dance, remembering how once a woman let down her hair to the waist & danced post haste with bare breasts moving side to side up to down & to the beat of silent music in her feet. So many languages-- so few words to help the poet understand why a poem should come to be at all but when the word takes the form of woman, braless, naked to the waist, dancing in the fresh, crisp air of spring first one hand then the other cupping her breasts as nipples perk & drinking nothing, she sings, the poet writes. Why a poem should come to be at all, she says not & neither does she leave the dancefloor to collapse upon a bed clad only in a g-string revealing hips that have never known childbirth-- knowing all to well the need poets have for writing words & knowing how to excite the soul, she dances, exciting her own form for she can dare that just as easily as she can create the smell so near a poet's tongue in one small stanza that the poet, alone, can come to understand how shaking up the insides of the word can not erase the woman nor the poet's memory of hips firm, or breasts like the Bard's sonnets, traced with finger or lips to a line's end, close shaved. Why a poem should come to be at all ought not be forgotten nor feared nor compared to the taste of forbidden fruit-- might best be likened to quickened feeling sensitive upon an earlobe. Written December 20th, 2001 © on Dec 20 2001 08:37 AM PST, Rudy Thomas   0 • 10