An Answer

An Answer You ask me how to be a poet, and I tell you to climb into yourself, into the bitter parts, into the wells of hurt so deep that the light frightens you and you scramble back out in fear of your sanity. Sleep with witches, the ones who can slip in and out of madness at will; the wild eyed ones who frighten the people with their songs, the dull flat people who cannot read seas nor hear stars. Go ask the gypsies who wear rings on their tongues. Go ask the children who carry dreams in their eyes. Go ask the moon, the candy moon. You ask me how to be a poet. I tell you marry a fool and walk in her dances. Mark Conte, copyright, Cross Cultural Press, 1986