A Poet Is Born Poem by Cheryl Griffith

Sliding onto ivory sheets he screams
The obscurity of unfamiliar faces
And loud voices made him afraid
Cut off from that place which all this time had kept him safe
A watery space that once housed his fragile body
The ambiguity of his existence made him dizzy
Oh perhaps; the world is spinning faster than he imagine
Already thoughts and ideas impregnate his potent brain
His head heavy with the weight of reality
Of the death he must live and the life he must kill
Of war, hunger, famine, disease,
Of greed, and foolish power hungry men
Forever searching for euphoria
In a world where mammon is God
He thinks of the womb and weeps, sicken with nostalgia
Propped upon his mother's breast
Heartbeat reverberating,
Hammering hard against his minute chest
A poet is born, and he lies silent and very afraid