And Wear Your Socks Too

Some poems are like splinters
you either get them or you don't.
Some splinters are like poems
you either get them or you don't.
No one invites those splinters;
and but a few invite a poem.

Some poems are like splinters.
They pierce you where
and when you least expect it,
and niggle at your nerve
in that most sensitive place.

Some splinters are like poems.
They poke at your humanity
in their own way,
and let you know you're alive
in your own way;
Yes, even that bit there.

Who ever read a splinter and said
"I liked that, It meant a lot to me"?
Who ever pulled a poem, and said,
"I don't need that in my face"?

Still we keep reading
and finding ourselves,
even just a bit at a time,
even those bits
we never thought we had.

Or perhaps those others
we thought we'd secreted away,
long gone, supposedly
dead and buried.
until they got splinter stuck.

It's so weird walking on bare
unpolished poetry
with just my socks on....
Just like those bare floor boards
the ones that give me the heeby-geebies --
the ones that grab and pull at me
and make me shiver right up my spine
and tingle the back of my head.

Better the splintery boards, I figure,
than to walk on the firey coals
of mindless indifference.
Dead meat knows no pain.
It just stinks; it fouls the air.

Some poems ......
Yes, some poems....
.... some splinters....
and some boards.
Best that I keep reading.
Come, join me,
and wear your socks too.