FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO REJECT MY POEMS [Part IV]

IV
RESTRAINT

the ideal human condition in society is to be free -
the ideal human condition in nature is to be free -
the ideal human condition is to be free in the ideal human condition

i grew up loving freedom: the notion that i could color
outside of the lines and that i can try to put a square peg
in a round hole all i wanted because i got to be myself

the self is so true, through freedom we see truly how
we can pump our arms in attempts to reach something
up above us all, above the notion of man, above ideal human condition

so many times i have seen poets go upupup
and think that they can touch the sun, but remember Icarus?
like so many times the freedom can lead to the ocean below

then there are those who think solely in chains
of ideals presented in books of old, the ideas of poetics
passed down to them in a desk etched with hearts and curse words

balance is the mother that bears true creation:
how one can restrain oneself just enough to wring every last drop
of creation from one's mind unto the page

yet freedom, allowing all words and letters to bear something
wonderful, fleeting, bouncing around like radio waves in the air
unto something that is as free as radio free

i can write like that (hell, i am doing it now, right?)
and i love freedom, after all, i live in one nation under all,
so how i love to skew things up and around and over

skewed rhymes in a "sonnet?" sure.
tetrameter instead of English pentameter? absolutely.
i love it all, i take it all, i breathe it all

but sometimes it is fun to put myself in chains
of perfect rhyme and meter and restraint such as
fixed-width font or only so many letters

after all, it when the humans become trapped when
they become ingenious - ready to take on everything
with nothing but a few words and a way to go

i cannot think that the sonnet is all that there is
but sometimes, dammit, i want to be Shakespeare!
i want to woo women (now a) with meter like rose petals

to pluck and pluck and pluck and pluck and pluck
(kerplunk kerplunk kerplunk kerplunk kerplunk)
dammit all if i didn't just use a slant!

when i become Shakespeare, i cannot become Shakespeare:
i become Navarro only forming like Shakespeare
because Shakespeare plus Navarro equals newness from oldness

restraint is the mother of invention, not necessity, for the poet
because i cannot live without water
but poetry is not water - poetry is wine

and like all good drinks it is best
to exercise a little restraint here and there
because dammit sometimes it just makes it taste better