POETRY: BY NIKKI GIOVANNI

poetry is motion graceful 
as a fawn 
gentle as a teardrop 
strong like the eye 
finding peace in a crowded room 
we poets tend to think 
our words are golden 
though emotion speaks too 
loudly to be defined 
by silence 
sometimes after midnight or just before 
the dawn 
we sit typewriter in hand 
pulling loneliness around us 
forgetting our lovers or children 
who are sleeping 
ignoring the weary wariness 
of our own logic 
to compsoe a poem 
no one understands it 
it never says "love me" for poets are 
beyond love 
it never says "accept me" for poems seke not 
acceptance but controversy 
it only says "i am" and therefore 
i concede that you are too

a poem is pure energy
horizontally contained
between the mind
of the poet and the ear of the reader
if it does not sing discard the ear
for poetry is song
if it does not delight discard
the heart for poetry is joy
if it does not inform then close
off the brain for it is dead
if it cannot heed the insistent message
that life is precious

which is all we poets
wrapped in our loneliness
are trying to say


^^ written by Nikki Giovanni