Tuesdays with Nikki... even though it's Wednesday

Ok, ok... I know it's Wednesday and I should be offering up a poem or a piece of writing for "Writer's Block Wednesdays", but this week.....I GOT NOTHING! Whitney did his part. He texted me the word on Monday. But I have yet to come up with something. Simply put, I haven't had the time this week to sit, reflect and write. So here is my solution...a poem by my favorite poet. The poetess who inspires me. The poetess who makes me smile, laugh, cry and think. To acknowledge the poet who's writings screamed at me at an early age and continue to holler at me at mid life.....I offer up "Tuesdays with Nikki".

Each Tuesday I plan to share a poem by the talented, wonderful and beautiful, NIKKI GIOVANNI. Take this chance to get to know her...

Poetry

By Nikki Giovanni

Copyright 1975

poetry is a motion graceful

as a fawn

gentle as a teardrop

strong like the eye

finding peace in a crowded room

we poets tend to think

our words are golden

though emotions speaks too

loudly to be defined

by silence

sometimes after midnight or just before

the dawn

we sit typewriter in hand

pulling loneliness around us

forgetting our lovers or children

who are sleeping

ignoring the weary wariness

of our own logic

to compose a poem

no one understands it

it never says "love me" for poets are

beyond love

it never says "accept me" for poems seek not

acceptance but controversy

it only says "i am" and therefore

i concede that you are too

a poem is pure energy

horizontally contained

between the mind

of the poet and the ear of the reader

if it does not sing discard the ear

for poetry is a song

if it does not delight discard the heart for poetry is joy

if it does not inform then close off the brain

for it is dead

if it cannot heed the insistent message that life is precious

which is all we poets

wrapped in our loneliness

are trying to say