Poet

[Update – GPT o1-preview has a go after me at the bottom – see who you prefer.]

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I've always wanted to be a poet

Picking words like seashells from the beach

Carving sound and flow

Building Lego thoughts in other's heads

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I've always wanted to be a poet

Surrounded by frizzy haired activists

Wearing woven jumpers

Horn-rimmed glasses and pony tails

Jazz-cats and sound-hounds

Waving flags and placards

Don't these people have a job?

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I've always wanted to be a poet

But I'm not so keen upon standing on stage

The bright lights dazzling

The attention laser-locked

No room for failure

No room for stuttering

For forgetting how sounds are made by the mouth

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I've always wanted to be a poet

Not one of those that writes rhyming verse

Why be restrained by the diktats of the patriarchy?

By the tyranny of convention, the curse

Of needing the words to properly line up and meet the expectations of the listeners

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I've always wanted to be a poet

A few hundred words and the job is done

Another coffee watching the crowd

Distilling to a fine sherry

Their tos and fros

Their frowns and smiles

Their fleeting concerns that drift on the wind

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I've always wanted to be a poet

Is that a real job anyway?

Do you need family money

Or a patron?

Or to tap a funding spring?

Gushing guilt money

Raining down on a few with luck and talent

The bookish ones that escaped inwardly

Leaving those on the outside

To fend for themselves

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I've always wanted to be a poet

I don't know though

Whether I could play the award games

The media promotion

The endless readings to near-empty rooms

Just one rapt listener is a success

But is it, is it really?

Does it pay a mortgage, pay the rent

Pay to heat the house, pay the council tax

Pay for clothes for the kids, and food

And childcare, when you are off

Drinking small glasses of poor promotion wine

With retirees from high paying professions

Or with chunky public sector pensions

That allow them a life of the arts

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I've always wanted to be a poet

But I've struggled with timing

With length

What seems right one day, seems horrendous the next

Just write they say,

Then edit later

I don't really know how you do that with verse

Aren't the lines meant to be a set length

A set number of syllables?

My mind is blank

I learnt this in English once

But isn't a poet meant to transgress the boundaries

Fire words out into space to explore

Brave new worlds

Only so long as you are not so different

Stretching, not breaking, expectations

La da di, la da da

Scatting not wrapping

Nature not the contents of your bin

Some form of underlying meaning or point

Not just self-indulgent streams of consciousness running away with themselves across the page

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I've always wanted to be a poet

To have my words in a small book

With an artist friend to paint the cover

Bundled by a late minute theme

I've asked an AI to compile

To give the publishers something to sell

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I've always wanted to be a poet

How much do they refine their words

Do they fire and forget?

Fire and forgive?

Leave someone else to raise them

To feed and clothe them

To nurture them with love and attention

Or is that the poets job

And does the gender matter

The publishers argue about best placed demographics

Maybe I don't fit

Too rich for some, too poor for others

Not enough deprivation

Not enough lived experience

Sitting here in my armchair

Plucking words from the air

And pinning them into my books

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I've always wanted to be a poet

To wear a hat

Maybe that will be my thing

For a bit

Until I get bored

Need to grow

Need a refresh

Stale brands

Sell no content

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I've always wanted to be a poet

Would I now

Need to get on

Instagram and TikTok

Film sixty second readings

Pithy little pebbles

Carried in pockets

Like Talismen

Shriveling in the stream

As starved of attention

Next

Swipe up, swipe down

This isn't funny

It's been said before

The person's too

Insert words here

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I've always wanted to be a poet

To spend my mornings

Writing 750 words

On a blank sheet of paper

For no other benefit

Than the joy of writing

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I've always wanted to be a poet

It takes grit

Dedication

A knowledge of the rules

A degree

A mentor

An apprenticeship

To get to a place of empty silence

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Echoes of an Unwritten Poem

I've yearned to sculpt the silence into verse, 
To harvest words like stones along a stream, 
And skip them 'cross the surface of the mind.

I picture myself among the restless ones, 
Wild-haired prophets in secondhand coats, 
Who hurl their voices at the sun — 
But how do they afford the moon?

The spotlight tempts yet turns me cold; 
Its glare reveals each hidden flaw, 
My tongue a traitor in my mouth, 
No script for awkward pauses.

Must poetry conform to form, 
Each line a prisoner to rhyme? 
Why not let the chaos speak?

"Just write, revise when dawn arrives," 
But every syllable feels final, 
Carved into the bark of time.

Is "poet" just a borrowed dress, 
Worn by those who can afford 
The luxury of being heard?

I wonder if I'll chase the prizes, 
Read to rooms of empty chairs, 
Applauded by indifferent hands.

Should I condense my soul to seconds, 
A fleeting clip to swipe and skip, 
Lost in endless scrolling seas?

Still, I write to hear the echo 
Of a self I might yet know, 
To claim a space where words can breathe, 
And in that breath, become.

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[It’s quite good you know!]