The Great Unread

I fear being well-read

becoming lost in a deep

morass of other cleverly

sculptured words,

a Venus flytrap poet

stuck and slowly strangled,

sucked dry by the influence

of those who’ve gone before

all originality desiccated,

I want my words to drip like

blood, soaking the reader in

a life-giving warm embrace

not spilling with a caustic

rattle like breakfast cereal

on a hard bone china dish,

influence can be viral, it

can taint, lure and divert

a poet’s purpose, a maze

of misdirection, a slough

of desperation, a quagmire

of the ordinary

Published by grahamrsherwood