Writing Class

This class
is a zoo.

We, the writers, pace
behind
steel cages of
thought and desire,
the likes of which can only be opened
by the Keeper of the Moment.
His keys rattle
like a baby's,
shaking the emotion
from the encapsulated,
tempting them to spew forth the last
vestiges
of their consciousness,
the images and metaphor
for the freedom only He can give.

We stamp,
we shout,
we call forth the pantheon
of written verse,
the Olympus
of the blur of time in an instant--
a fraction--
of lives spent in places both better
and worse
than ever before,
enclosed,
as those who created them.

And yet,
no matter the time spent,
the ages of waste scattered,
dumped,
across the pathways of desire,
we still pace,
reaching a paw
between the lines,
desperately searching for the nod,
the smile,
the acceptance of what we've created
as being "good enough."

We never see the keys again.

But the tourists
press their faces against the steel words
barring our way back
to reality,
pointing,
laughing--
the mother as she bends down
over her son
to say,
"Look!
See the poet?"