The poet plays devil’s advocate

The poet plays devil’s advocate by Alison Hurst

Are poems that should not be written

Creations that meet the reader with excruciating pain

Reopening wounds

Followed by the wish that those words should never be spoken

Poems roar in my ears, pen standstill, hesitating

The gasping of a child that would freeze bone marrow

The deafening violence of lover’s betrayal tearing into thigh every midnight

Scribe these moments could be an undoing

Critics would argue the more the poignant the emotion

The more glory to gain

But I argue some are not for public claim

I see silhouettes in their cars, looking out to sea

Alone in their agony

And wonder are their words a spinning ball in a cranium vault

What if they are writing their desolation upon the ocean’s white caps

Throwing their despair into the clear wash

Would not these personal releases bring the same reward as any literary accolade?