The Poetry Pond

Everyone is a poet, or so the philosopher said. The world teems         with poetry in much the sense the universe teems with life.         A poet or two is squirrelled away in every major office.         Boiler rooms hum with the tooth and nail, robust imagery of         working class poets. The neurological desire to express oneself         transcends even social barriers. Be creative, like a brain surgeon.         My scalpel runneth over amongst all those cerebral ganglia.         The mind washed clean, scrubbed down. Words burn holes on the         paper. Firemen disguised as poets douse the heroic flames.         Sherpas tightly drawn amidst depths of a Himalayan winter         weather a torrent of words. Groggy, I search for breath, am given         oxygen but see writing materials.         In the future, everyone will be famous for five minutes.         We have been promised this by Andy Warhol.         In the present, a day in the life of the poet is within reach of each of         you, my peers.         Barnum and Bailey's fresh from the publishing scene comes to         town, will train talent or so the sign read. But the Big Top can't         accommodate all the poets. Word jugglers sneak under the tent to         court the ringmaster's favour.         Poetry is a religion, said the neophyte before downing its meagre         fare. A window on life confounding reality, fingering experience.         Feast for the intellect, grace and passion abiding as one. Yet, with         poetry becoming as all things to all men and with every man doing as         right in his own eyes, privateers and other assorted scaliwags, eager to         toss in their lot with the real Empress, lay ransom to this queen of arts.         Somewhere, every person alive has written a book of poems.         Bushel and a peck, common as gravestones.         My mind was a tabla rosa and the poets could not pick it clean.         And me within reach of this uncontrolled mitosis, arspoetica. I         dread "have a nice day," is already a populist poem. Think my         grade 13 biology is hazy but not my ability to count the poets.         I am holding hands with the poets lest we foam too perilously         at the crest.         Sentenced in absentia to torturing words, pulling wings off         proverbial flies, attacking motherhood.         Worse, performing illegal abortions on the craft.