R.M. Engelhardt

Poet By Night

No one
Ever asks
To be a poet

This shit just
Happens to you

Word addiction
The turn of a phrase
Your mind works
Differently
Than other 
People’s minds

A gift?
Or a curse?

You start writing
Jotting down notes
Talking into your phone
Start looking at
Reading books
Quietly taken out
From the library

And on your lunch break?

You start
Scrolling poets
On Instagram
Occasionally
Looking up
To make sure
No one sees you
Is watching you

And then?

It starts
You begin to write poems

Not just 1 or 2
But dozens 
Fascinated with 
The way you can
Put them all together
Like one of those haiku
Or sonnet thingies
As pain, humor
& emotion start
The human transformation 

So you live a secret life
Among others writing in secrecy
Afraid of your own thoughts 
Until one day it happens

" Open Mic For Poetry"

A sign

There are others like me?
You ask

Therapy groups?

Yes

So you go out
& listen
Read in a bar
Under the light
Of the full moon
And after you read
Your poem a creepy old unshaven 
Bohemian looking guy
Walks up to you & says

" That was great. Really good!"

YOU'RE
ONE OF US 
NOW

And the next 
Thing you know 
You're wearing
Silly hats & smoking
Clove cigarettes & drinking coffee
Past 8pm

You're one
Of US now

And there
Is no cure
No escape 
But to write


R.M. Engelhardt is a poet, writer & author whose work over the last 30 years has been published in a number of journals & zines. His latest book of poetry is entitled  RAW Poems By R.M. Engelhardt 2023 published by Dead Man's Press Ink.