What Poetry Means to Me.

"You will always be a poet" A wise man once told me.
"Others might not think of you as one, but you will" 
'Why?" I asked
"is the singing of the birds not music to some?"
"yes but..."
"make your life an epic poem, as Odysseus or Dante did."


This conversation with Simon got me thinking. What is poetry? The soft spoken word of a sensitive intellectual? The cry of a mocking bird in the early morning? Words of love from one romanticist to the other? Maybe even the cry of a man in danger, asking for help and forgiveness? Then I realized that poetry is all of these things, and so much more.


It's what gives a soldier the will to fight.
What gives the blind man new found light.
It keeps the guilty men awake at night


To some poetry and art as a whole, is just people trying to confirm their own existences, but to me poetry is a way to express myself and my beliefs in a way no other art form can. It lets me take off my mask, the one I use with my family, the one I use with my friends, the one I use with almost absolutely everybody, and simply become me, the me I was born to be. The reckless, mad, and terribly inquisitive me. The me I was as a kid, and still am deep, deep inside the trenches of my soul. If I needed a confirmation of my existence, I would get into a fight, get hurt, get hit, feel the mix of emotions swell my mind, and let them overwhelm me, become me, let me be free from the chains of everyday life. That would certainly confirm my existence.


My friend Robert E. Guerra told me recently that "writing is a bit like talking to yourself, because you're saying what your soul wants to say, and you are your soul." He said that "an artist's painting is like a mirror of your inner thoughts and mind, maybe even his soul. A musician's tones and vibratos are the sound of their soul and such, well poetry is just another form of art, so it's essentially the same all artists can see, hear, read what and who they are.. some might be dark and gloomy.. others bubbly and peppy.. and us, philosophical and questioning and recently I've come to think that it isnt because we are old souls that have come to understand the forces of nature and life.. because if we were we'd be pretty gloomy.. because life is very depressing.. you've got conformity, robbery, lust for power, money and sex.. but young souls, which is what I think we are, question the world and marvel at the beauty of simply and extravagant things together.. they enjoy everything from taking a piss to reading a book to looking at landscapes and even other people." These are probably some of the wisest words I have ever heard in my entire life. Not only because it helped me achieve a whole new level of enlightment, but because of the sheer brilliance of the fact that we're not old souls but in fact young, young and inquisitive, young, inquisitive, and brilliant.


I've also come to realize that there is no good or bad poetry, poetry is your soul speaking. Some people just need to learn how direct their thoughts in a more clear manner. And to learn how to write you must infact start writing. There's no need to be discouraged, because "You might look stupid" I myself, had never written a poem before my dear friend, Carina Martinez, got me into it by saying she wrote poems herself. This inspired me in two ways, the first being me wanting to impress her, and the second was of course mere curiosity. I wanted to see how well I could write and how far I could take it, and that pushed me to go as far as I've come. I've made a lot of friends through out this journey, such as Paul Soto who deeply influenced my writing style, and was one of the first to enlighten me into greater thinking, and Simon or "Suffered Sage" who has given me some of the greatest advice I have ever gotten, and has enlightened me much more then anybody else.


What I'm trying to say is that Poetry is not just a bunch of rhyming words on a piece of paper, it's a way of life people need to learn to embrace, live and love. Because it's inside all of us, just like our blood and our arteries. But it's thicker, it's thicker because it's real. Real not in the material sense, but in the spiritual, which is what really matters.