Trevor Witt

We need more poets

 

We need more poets,

To battle bullets unafraid,

To speak with words as shields,

To use stories as spears,

To cut beneath the pain.

 

To rush into the war with verses,

To break trauma’s curses,

To end cycle after cycle of violence,

To provide healing as recompense,

To reconcile humanity with the vile,

 

We need writers to right the wrongs

That hurt so hard they can only be sung in songs,

We need to pause, to take a breath,

To carry on through tears and death.

We need words, to bear our burdens,

To shoulder our fears, until the final curtain.

 

We need people to feel,

We need words to heal.

Plain walls (born of tears and love)

 

Plain walls,

That children never drew on,

Carpets which never saw dirt,

 

Clean rooms,

Everything put away,

Closets with clothes unworn,

 

Boxes of crap,

Records never heard,

Notebooks of stories never shared,

 

This is not the home I seek,

A shiny, unblemished mansion, chic.

 

This is not the room I rent,

Where every penny is spent.

 

I want dirt and pain and striving,

To reach for my dream,

Born of tears and love.

What use do I have for love poems?

What use do I have for love poems?

They cannot capture the warmth of your embrace.

They cannot recreate the lines of your face.

 

They cannot lend an ear when I am falling apart.

They cannot console me when I have a hole in my heart.

What use do I have for love poems?

 

They will only let me down,

As I close the pages of my feelings,

What use do I have for fairy tales?

 

They only break your heart.