Poetry In The 3rd Degree Poem by richard ilnicki

Some poetry is neatly clothed Windsor knot crisp,
a tight, spit-shined gentleman's quarterly package
with no rough edges obvious,
and perhaps some rhyme stuck in the lapel for good measure,
some harmonious sing-song sing along song
but not necessarily any less meaningful.
It smells good, rather sweet, if you will
and goes down easy like chiffon pie.
It can be found in a ballroom
black tie tails and candy cane
dancing with the queen.


Some poetry dances naked
from the waist up breasts exposed
and not just for a handful of beads on Bourbon Street.
Some will proudly deliver the Full Monty
center stage, no soliloquy, here. It is
unashamedly open to brutal examination.
Every pore, pimple, carbuncle
and birthmake are exposed
and magnified beneath the physician's lamp
as if they were proud scars
ripped across the face of a page.

Some poetry sticks its narcissistic head
beneath the blade of the guillotine of natural selection.
It tap dances like a chicken with its head chopped off
Into the wild blue yonder.
It is not afraid to take chances
because it somehow feels immortal.
Survival of the fittest reveals
that this poetry has guts; it eats fear for energy
with incisors that would shame a wolf
and dances flamenco with a blood red cape on fire
into a boiling sun filled bullring.

Some poetry is range free
raw rare red meat,
uncooked and dangerous and juicy.
The inside-out ripped flesh is dripping
blood and wounded bones contused,
organs dangling like participles on a spit
above a can of canned heat.
Tender to a longshoreman's gnarled touch
it is the punched out torture of hard to read verses
which stick to the roof of your mouth.
It raises the dead by the conduction of exposed nerves,
the neurotic repetitious strikes of the blades of pain
hidden beneath the scapula and skull cap.

This poetry in the raw is supported
by the poet's legs of integrity, girders of quadriceps
that have been sunk deep into its dark journey
to the center of the earth. This poetry in the raw
is the joy and the pain of the busted hymen-
exhausted passions-
now ready to give birth.

This poetry in perpetuity
is the muse in perpetual motion. It bumps
and grinds mysteriously to the mythological beat
of a different drummer.
This poetry can dance alone.