Truth and Poetry

My love of poetry
stems from love of truth
and of simplicity.
But shrinking twists,
distillation alters,
and in my potent drops
of thoughts, emotions,
and self- exposition
I tainted truth – like an image
warped and bloated
under too much magnification.
You cannot judge my feelings
by brief phrases scrawled
to relieve pressure on my brain.
You cannot know how
my eyes see someone
by my attempts at revealing
the strains on my own psyche.
If we can judge a place
by post card,
You live on low-rolling hills
carpeted with dense blue-green
and spotted with charging
thoroughbreds.
I live on a cornfield
surrounded by giant caves.
To judge me by poetry,
I have stars in my eyes
think my friends are Gods,
and am morose and melancholy
all of the time.
But, in truth, I laugh.
In life, I see the textures
the details, the ins and outs…
When I sing praises
for something beautiful
I do not imagine it is perfect.
To see the beauty of anything
you must first observe its faults.
Its strengths and flaws together
make a beauty in truth.
And it is my love of true things
that moves me to poetry.