A Poets Manifesto

You might ask me why write poetry, why it is that I give paper to my thoughts.
I would have no recourse but to answer you with the coral flesh that breathes in lines
of hibiscus sentiment. I must refine my speech to ink, preferring the human to the inhuman, the light to the night, the stars to the nocturnal moon. I cannot defer such questions but I must defend with tourmaline hands the beauty of such solitude, the way it traces my spine with octopus tentacles, prying with a stonemasons gentleness
the crystal granite of clarity. Here among the pebbles glass, the waters are born anew, rejuvenating the white spirit with truth untarnished. Here among the urchin waves, anguish is but a beginning breathing mist into the crimson dawn.
You might ask why I write such things, why I choose to traipse the depths of my soul, digging for ingots of pearl, why one would prefer seclusion to this world. But I must answer with elusiveness, protecting the consonants drum with a soft clenched fist. I must defend the verses with a respect for the distance, never abandoning the shadows completely.
I have chosen, no it has chosen me. I am subdued by the syllables speech, the way a conch whispers bitterly sweet nectar wading waves like a surfboard. I am drawn to the tangerine sky like a kite of doves, soaring above the senseless solicitations of this world. I am a thousand neglected struggles, a million hummingbirds crying in blue notes of atonement. I look beyond the windows view , erasing my doubts with sentences of thunder, a tempest storm on the rise.
You might ask me why I write poetry, but in the end, it writes me. I am merely a willing participant, gathering strength from the muse, seeking merely to uncover and expose the beauty of this place.

Kevin Harling.