how dare I
think of myself
some rambling naked poet
so what
a few hundred half-baked poems
perhaps five hundred
maybe a thousand
or a few arousing more
fitfully pecked out
scratched out on litmus paper
on the old family Underwood
typed out again
like some intrinsic caper
trying to be understood
typed on humming electric writers
later I'm numb
trying to be good
punching words and lines
on nondescript computer keyboards
how dare I
think of myself
a lord of lordly poem
like a smear from gory road kill
so bloody what
I'm just a peasant farmer
delighting in gobbling turkeys
imagining lurking ring-necked pheasant
while I'm singing and sowing seeds
growing through decades of seedy life
rife words and greedy lines
all that needy life and death poetry
perhaps fifty or more years
seeking tearful sunsets
enduring seasons of eerie storms
smelling all those blooming flowers
climbing towering snow-capped peaks
heaping woven baskets with rapping stanzas
I'm at home again
aptly building towers
all those glad even unhappy words
in my sad and sappy head
how dare I
care or need or think
write daring poems
reading nature's poetry
how dare I
share my symbolic dinner
how dare I
hone or write another word
how dare I range
beyond the written page
for ageless poetry's sake
since writing's only kept me thinner

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