What unseen baby do I submit to the slaughter
Oops!
… to the analysis of a poetry contest.
My poems are my children.
Created from the emotional sweat of my life.
Their veins move the blood born of my tragedy and tears.
How then can I give any of them away to be poked and prodded
by someone who has not witnessed those tears?
Why must I be tempted to participate?
For Money?
For Fame?
For Accolade?
And then to give my words away and my name doesn't go with them.
How lonely they will be.
Robin Williams come back to life and remind the world that it is all…
"EXCREMENT!"
That poetry is meant to be savoured, not sawed.
No, I will not surrender the sons and daughters of my emotions to be slaves anymore!
***
Then what is this?
Is this not a new child?
Is this not an offspring born from my anger?
Maybe… but more than a poem, this a message.
Let this be the child that willingly goes into battle
to save her siblings from humiliation and death.
© Ruby Neumann
Poet's Note:
Written on October 24, 2023… in response to an invitation to submit a poem on line to a World Poetry Contest out of Ireland for the Moth Magazine. The deadline for submission is New Years Eve.
Dec 31, 2023: I guess I'm not submitting this poem to the contest. I might have had it been easier to process payment. So I will publish it here and give it a home among it's "siblings".
This year hasn't been much of a poetry writing year. It's been a puzzling year, so I took a picture of puzzle pieces I arranged into the word "poetry", so that they would meet together here. Poems are puzzles and puzzles are poems. So maybe I am still "The Precious Poet"... even though I am also "The Precious Puzzler"
