POETRY: “THE OFFICIAL HOME”

Poetry is “The Official Home”
For words that sing instead of drone
With “this” and “that”s in monotone.
I prefer my words to grab;
Captured interest holds romance,
And gloomy doom gets its chance
To grab it, too, or just enhance
The shine of words already known…
It’s that or pare them to the bone.

Should YOU lack this treasure trove,
Exchange the bucks you clutch and own
For reference books like “Strunk and White;”
It helps me read the poems I write.
Or so it did in the 10th grade,
Which I recall like yesterday;
I stocked my pile of words this way,
Words which played upon a stage
Or danced upon the written page;
Filled my brain chock full of them,
Aced the tests yet once again.

Now I find I’m lost for names.
Hunt and peck and claw the way
Back to my ancestral home
Of words I stored so long ago.
I’m met by only emptiness,
So imagine, please fathom my distress
When, like an ancient dinosaur-us,
I’m reduced to peruse a thesaurus?