A Kaleidoscope Of Words Poem by Richard D Remler

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I stumble
through this
kaleidoscope
of words -
like a vagabond,
searching a
wasteland
for treasures
overlooked by time,
and by me,

every once
and again,
finding
something new,
or something
very old.

sometimes
the winds howl,
and I'm reminded there
were others before me.
others who left
footfalls in these
timeless dunes,
footfalls swept over
by time and the patience
of a thousand
different dreams.

they are the few
who left their words
scattered along these
shores...

unfinished symphonies,

the opus
of a life,

lost...

and I gather them up,
these lonely words,
and I sweep away
the dust,

and the words
sneak quietly
out from their
hiding places,
and talk to me.

like an echo
fighting
for its old voice.

struggling to be
remembered.


and I write...

I write,
because it's what I do.



Copyright © MMXIV Richard D. Remler



**a spontaneous write

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Quoting Poets:

Poets On Poetry....

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"Poets are soldiers that liberate words from the steadfast possession of definition. "

~Eli Khamarov, The Shadow Zone

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"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life! ... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life? " Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be? "

~John Keating (Fictional Character Portrayed By Robin Williams)Dead Poet Society 1989


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"Poetry is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."

~Thomas Gray


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"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things."

~T. S. Eliot


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"Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words."

~Edgar Allan Poe


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"A poet is a man who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times."

~Randall Jarrell


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"Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood."

~T. S. Eliot


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"Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance. "

~John Keats


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"There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing."

~John Cage


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"The only problem

with Haiku is that you just

get started and then"

~Roger McGough


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"A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself."

~E. M. Forster


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"A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep."

~Salman Rushdie


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"A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language."

~W. H. Auden


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"Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance."

~Carl Sandburg


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"Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting."

~Robert Frost


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"Imaginary gardens with real toads in them." ~Marianne Moore's definition of poetry, Collected Poems,1951


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"Most poems are never finished, " (I was defensive) . He sighed: "No, most poems are never started."

~Dr. SunWolf, professorsunwolf.com


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"Poetry is man's rebellion against being what he is."

~James Branch Cabell


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"A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music... and then people crowd about the poet and say to him: "Sing for us soon again; " that is as much as to say, "May new sufferings torment your soul."

~Soren Kierkegaard


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"The smell of ink is intoxicating to me — others may have wine, but I have poetry."

~Terri Guillemets


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"Poetry is everywhere; it just needs editing. " ~James Tate

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"I am looking for a poem that says Everything so I don't have to write anymore."

~Tukaram


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"Before men ever wrote in clay they cast their words in verse and line, rythymbound in poets' minds, defying time and age."

~Dave Beard


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"God is the perfect poet."

~Robert Browning


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"Poetry is ordinary language raised to the nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words."

~Paul Engle, New York Times,17 February 1957


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"Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words ". ~Robert Frost