A good poet is a naughty child. <br />Breaking hearts. <br />Playing with people's emotions. <br />Stirring up forgotten memories. <br />Reviving repressed memories. <br />Laughing in the face of death. <br /> <br />Like a washwoman wringing the soiled shirt, <br />Rubbing edges of humanity, brushing scabs, <br />Looking for wrinkles in disrepair. <br />Verbalizing what adults will not. <br />Telling the truth, wars to be fought, <br />Dreams to be dreamed. <br />Souls to confess, songs to be sung. <br />Making meaning of life. <br /> <br />Dissecting feelings and thoughts, <br />Justifying vanity. <br />Fashion fragments of life, <br />Bringing innocence into fashion. <br />Fashioning beauty from the barren. <br />In the silence of night, <br />A solitary figure, <br />Whose kingdom has no ending.<br /><br />Barry A. Lanier<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-poet-is-a-naughty-child-but/
