Anatomy of a Poet

A poet is a lonely being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music ... and then people crowd about the poet and say to her: "Sing for us soon again;" that is as much as to say, "May new sufferings torment your soul." ~Soren Kierkegaard

I don't know how much of the above quotation is actually true, or maybe it's just what Soren felt, personally, as a poet. The following was written as my answer to a poetry challenge in one of my writing groups. The challenge was: Write a poem answering the question, "What is a Poet?"

Anatomy of a Poet
by CJ Heck

Go in through
the eyes of a poet
deep into her
alphabet mind.
Ideas like
flotsam and jetsam
dodge poetry
fragments and lines.
Beware the
dark shadows
of memory,
knife-sharp
and bloodied
by time,
or gentle,
orgasmic
and sensual,
swirling eddies,
some without rhyme.
Softly notice
the spirit
in hiding.
Tiptoe past
the bruised heart
mending there,
knitting poems,
pearls strung
on a necklace,
unfinished
jewels everywhere.
Take note
on your tour
of this poet
the outside
no different
you see,
but inside,
my God, a
passion's abyss,
the poet,
the woman,
the me.