there's no music to cover mistakes
in the meaning that poetry makes
no chords to evoke high emotion
no notes to disguise punctuation
or distract from the words you got wrong
every word it contains must belong
a song can be hummed under breath
or played and repeated to death
in lyrics your rhyme can be lazy
yet a poem will fail if it's hazy
a song may move crowds in the night
but a poem is hardest to write
today I'm the opposite of thinner
after eating excessive dinner
it might have been the food
(to not eat it would be rude)
but I think it was the talking
that filled me up. I'm chalking
it up to the words, you see
for poems beckoned to me
from the corners of the room
I wished for dustpan and broom
to sweep them into my book
to save them for a later look
but I did not, I let them go
though I yearned to write them so
for is it not rude to slip away
just to write a poem for the day?
so today my belly is round
full of poems without sound
yes I think - I have no doubt:
it's the words I can't get out
