All The Words A Prison Poem by Richard Weissman

All the words a prison,
And all the poets merely jailers,
Their verses - steely bars,
All the words a prison - defining, limiting - thwarting innocence of creativity,
in the name of ingenuity,
And must a poet paint a picture?
And if so, what are painters for?
And if not, what then distinguishes sacred poetry from the profanity of prose?
And what of literary concepts?
If they fall in forests of misconceptions,
Were they really heard at all?
As Ecclesiastes said, with newness and the sun,
It's all been said before,
All the words a prison,
With repetition, the soul's solitary, skeletal key.

(1991)