The accusatory blank page stalks me. <br />Manifest in the form of a pristine notebook. <br />I long to speak, I long too create. <br />From my pocket, its nakedness mocks. <br /> <br />It whispers to my soul of stillborn reflection's. <br />I open it up to the universe of possibilities <br />and lose myself in the inordinate scale of existence. <br />I invert my view and look within, to understand myself. <br /> <br />The voices of Messer's Owen and Douglas <br />cry to me from their tortured past. <br />Poets that earned the write to be read <br />for no rewards but a cold field in France, years apart. <br /> <br />Echoes of hell broadcast through time. <br />Thoughts boiled in a cauldron fed by a lost generation. <br />A call to the future offering a warning <br />A taste of war with a bitterness that burns. <br /> <br />I pine, as my cosseted existence <br />holds none of the pain needed <br />to force a true understanding <br />of our human condition. <br /> <br />Then, in the corner of my mind I catch <br />Mr Hughes via the spirit of a fox, <br />he tells of the beauty in all. <br />Even the carefully sculptured Crow captivates and teaches. <br /> <br />No deep stares into the face of death, <br />but talk of its defeat, in life. <br />The vista around him, and the creatures within, <br />offer reflections on the light, and the dark, of existence. <br /> <br />Does the poet have to <br />take their soul and torture it, <br />rip it out and hold it <br />to the readers face for review. <br /> <br />Or is clarity of vision enough. The poet <br />takes up their weapon of choice, <br />the pen, carefully twists a moment around it <br />laying it gently, with the love of a parent, on the page. <br /> <br />As humble as it is <br />I have nothing to offer the reader <br />but a view of our world through my eyes. <br />I possess no other.<br /><br />chris orton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/where-is-my-tortured-past/
