The time for poets

Has passed.

The time for words

Is gone

I have decided.

Soul & mind

As all the machines

Take over

As heart & guts are

Fucked over by

Commercials, jingles

Liars, assholes &

Trite hallmark cards

That’s it

I give up

I’m finished

I’m done

I lost the fight

And the battle

Took too much

Out of me

I lost the war and

My will for self-preservation

Is gone.

Painting images

With words

And for all of love’s

Considerations.

Pushing verses

Past their limits

To try to reach

Other people

Just another poet,

Now dead on the verge

Of extinction, sitting in

A room by himself

As the next kid

Behind me picks up

His pen and puts it

To paper

Not knowing

What he is about

To become

Or lose.

__________

R.M. ENGELHARDT