Dear Mr Poet at PoetsPassport.

Dear Mr Poet.

I admire your confidence.

The way you walk on stage and demand my attention with your silence.

Have my back ready for lashes, courtesy of your spoken word violence,

As you compose yourself, to breathe life, into words scribbled on scrolls

Little did we know, that you dug deep, into the bottom of your hearts’ hole

To stand before us and, bare your soul

Dear Mr Poet.

Contrary to popular belief,

Not all poets are born equal.

We can’t all paint beautiful paintings in the playing fields of our mind’s plain field.

It feels like the Lord overlooked us when he handed down his poetry graces,

I mean, You’re amazing.

Your words, have the ability to transcribe memories in hearts with no empty spaces.

The ability to transport me into the thoughts and places,

Of despicable beings, that do despicable things, to him, and she, and we.

Your words, put perspective, and help me realize that I may be a despicable version, of me

With, minion understanding of the trials and tribulations facing each step on the sole of our nation.

Your words, Mr Poet, help me see and believe Love.

The tango of your tangled Love webs my feet as I dance, and resist, while you dance, and persist.

Your broken heart, reminds me that Love isn’t always a two-way streak.

And sometimes Love is the peak, from which your heart will fall,

Into tunnels, of loneliness, and bitter hearts.

I don’t know what molasses are Mr Poet, but when you whisper those sweet words

Of encouragement, like redemption on Judgment Day,

I feel like an imprisoned Mandela seeing the light, on Freedom Day.

Dear Mr Poet, I don’t know if you know it,

But lately, your ego’s gotten in the way.

That thirty-minute self-intro you deemed necessary to bless us with seemed so irrelevant, it reeks of negligence, on your part

To your art, and your craft, it seems daft

That you would brag about merits and accolades

When true poetry has no awards.

But rewards in souls bared and shared.

Makes me wonder if your love for this is merely a façade.

And you’re chasing a lyrical high that was bestowed on you when you recited and standing O’s were endowed on you.

I wonder, Mr Poet, if your minds’ ever questioned why some of the most loved and renowned poems ever to grace us

Are synonymous with anonymous authors with no faces.

Shakespeare said “Don’t shoot the messenger”

But I’d shoot the messenger if he failed to bring home the message.

A preacher with no passage.

A hero with no courage.

A priest lying on the pulpit is a crime scene with no culprit.

I trip, I trip, I fall.

I need, I need, I call on Poets.

Dear Mr Poet!

I do not know if you know it.

But your audience misses you.

Like rain in the winter, we thirst for you.

Monsters Inc.

I don't remember being scared of scary stories.
Tales of, monsters and vampires to keep us afraid and consumed, with worry.
While we sit around fireplaces, worried
Listen to horror stories, worried
And hide away, shy and afraid, worried.

I remember being told stores and thinking to myself
These stores are lies, I can't relate to these lies
There's loop-holes and ties
I mean, why would two lovers go up a hill?
Monsters? Nah, they were looking for a thrill,
Maybe they wanted to hang-out, you know, chill
I don't remember being scared of scary stories.

See, I realized a long time ago that monsters don't live under your bed,
They sleep in your head.
They're there, being fed, by society telling you dreams don't come true,
By society, putting you in a box and trying to label you,
By society stealing from us, pretending to feel for us,
I fear those that earn our trust.
Those that, comfort us with Bible passage Psalms
While they fill their palms, with our dreams and intuition.
Distracting us with silly superstition.

Listen to the undertones in the dial-tones when we call on the monsters we trust.
They'll tell us education is the key,
and, at the end of school hallways lie the maps, to the American Puff Daddy dream.
The don't mention the student loans that slave your conscience, to a system of debt.
How does one dream selfishly to fulfill their destiny?
When, we're a generation crippled by our duty to please the hands that feed us.
How is education the key to opportunity,
When the only opportunity available is one dictated by you to me?

See monsters don't sleep under our beds, they're Alive in our heads.
Monsters make you feel like you belong in some parallel universe, outcast society,
of dreamers and dead poets, rhyming angry nouns with beautiful verbs,
smoking herbs, complaining about society while we do nothing
..but write poems.
Monsters make you feel 50 shades of cray,
about that abstract way you choose to sway,
to rhythms of drums even you can't hear
Monsters make examples of your heroes and turn them to zeros
Add that to your list of broken dreams, you free-thinking, book-reading, tea-sipping poetry fiends

I stopped checking for monsters under my bed, when I realized monsters live amongst us.