A poem

A poem a day my mental health doctor would say,
Keeps the mind healthy, fresh and young
By giving written voice to the spoken tongue.

To wrestle and tangle,
and sieve words through a mangle,
is like mental acrobatics with words,
to some it may seem absurd.
Yet somehow it seems cathartic,
can't put it down once started.

To give birth to something new, manipulate and shape to your true.
An aspiring artisan in this craft to others may seem daft,
but by doing one learns with every word every turn,
that an expression of thought is all that is sought.
It may be a poem of rich verse or something much worse.

It does not need to be a sonnet, Limerick or Haiku,
there's no chance of me writing a Diamante or Pantoum.
I have no idea, what they mean, I just write do you?

As I feel the words flow, I hope it shows,
that I have pledged my allegiance to this art,
to give birth to my thoughts and feelings that are in draft.

To honour and respect in my chosen dialect,
to express how I feel, with the aim to connect,
that is what a poem means to me.

For a long time, I was afraid, unable to say
that I was stifled in a swamp of assumption
And lost with my work never fit for consumption.

That may still be the case, I often write in haste,
but I know what I feel, my vulnerabilities are real,
a poem will never suit everyone's taste.

To inspire and to learn, and just do,
Now its my turn,
that it was a poem means to me.

So I ask you this as I say goodbye to my poem bliss,
What does a poem mean to thee.