VALOR OF POETRY

VALOR OF POETRY
Ricardo Antonio Garcia

Poetic words
float on the page of a book
and the cover
has faded over time-
fortitude and blockades stealth the heart
as mankind's robust natures quilt.
Pains and suffrage
have leaked
from its cloth bindings
as the arrogance
of its jurors spoke aloud
creating the disturbance of a wake.
Whose scholarly love shall hand the ripple
and drink from its waters?

Poetic eyes
transfix on its messages
and taste the words in its vinegary-
paradoxical cries for hope abound
and sing
its French anthems
as guns empty themselves in disbelief.
No one is exempt
from knowing, for what is knowing?
All of us who send wakes
empty ourselves in this reservoir.
Whose hand shall judge your fate
when time dictates itself?
I trust not the aged Scholar
for we are all individually imprisoned
by our expressions.

The valor of poetry
is exempt from criticism …