Poems are born from wild times,

From struggle, love and anger,

from men with soft hearts and hard fists,

from women whose smiles are like gold,

whose dreams are larger than the moon

And harder to reach.

Poems are not soft or weak,

They die if given 9 – 5 jobs

And secure homes with understanding friends.

Poems live at 2 am, drinking liquor and waking up in strange rooms with strange people

They live on new cities, tough attitudes,

Unplanned journeys, tall beautiful women on short dark streets

And fist fights with broken glass in their mouths.

Poems don’t live with old men who never danced in the fire

They don’t share a bed with someone who has never been broken

Poems see the devil and laugh.

Silas the famous poet, leaped from the ship at Troy

and dug his feet into the sand, his eyes surveyed the lines of men

heavy with shields and crazed with spear.

The sound of armed men crashing, ringing like thunder

Dying with choking screams and soaking the ground with their blood.

Silas wrote his best poems here.

Twenty-five centuries passing like shadows

Silas the poet still lives, standing on the city bridge, looking out into the lights

Seeing lovers walk hand in hand, deciding if he should jump or not.

Seeing the angry dying with a choking scream

On busy streets, in the arms of strangers,

The lonely driven insane by loneliness.

Pick up a pen and write of love that was never found

Of kindness that was never received

Poems are the children of the angry and mad, the ones not chosen,

Those who tried to hold another and were left

To lie awake at midnight cursing at the moon.

These are the poets.