Curtis Jerry Smothers
Teacher . Editor . Poet . Writing Coach . Historian . Online Tutor
The collection continues here with more thoughts, questions, and glimpses of life in verse. I hope you’ll find a line or two that speaks to something of your own.
Poetry is...
Poetry is emotion’s language—
the mind’s conversation with itself,
writ as free verse or in iamb.
It is where pithy meets the expansive
and becomes a new sort of truth:
a few words holding in parts
what we could not carry whole.
Poetry is an escape from the human condition—
the loneliness of being alone,
even beside someone we love.
There is so much we cannot find a way to say;
poetry is where truth finds accompaniment and the way.
The emotion of poetry is like looking on the face of God.
Jonathan Edwards had his own version of fire and brimstone poetry;
he described us all as sinners in the hands of an angry God,
preaching that divine restraint is all that saves us from the pit.
He was wrong.
God speaks no other language than the kindly language of Love’s Light.
We catch a glimpse through poetry—
sometimes in a single line we return to
without quite knowing why,
until it adds a balm to our doubts and grief.
It is the finite approaching the infinite:
what the present tense verb is to the infinitive,
an echo chamber of tautology and new beginnings.
Poets make no secret of who they write for—
it is for themselves,
in the scant expectation
that someone else will glean a morsel of truth.
Inside ourselves, thoughts and emotions roil,
unchecked and unknown by others.
The poet channels this chaos.
We read, and something long unnamed
begins to answer.
Poetry is emotion’s messenger.
What poets tell themselves, they tell others—
and someone alone with a page
finds words for what has kept them silent.
This Lie
This lie that's told kills the truth
Strangles goodness in its youth
This truth that's buried in this lie
Is choked and stunted by and by
This lie puts on a borrowed crown
And laughs as truth is trampled down
Corroding right, promoting wrong
Teaching conscience to go along
This lie conceals its rank decay
With sweet perfume to lead astray
But underneath, the poisons rise
To choke the truth before our eyes
This truth that tries to chase this lie
Runs far behind, though hard it tries
This lie it jumps and laughs and coos
But this truth can't even find its shoes
Peace is war and might is right
We can save the world with one more fight
We give our hatred Heaven's name
And call the killing free of blame
We hear that which He preaches us
But ignore what history teaches us
We swallow lies and eat the truth
And the price is fields of slaughtered youth
Each time truth dies, the lie takes root
And grows to bear its bitter fruit
Where goodness stood, no flowers bloom
And silence seals an empty tomb
My Creativity
Something from nothing
Is what I can’t make
Just cause and effect
And a thirst I can’t slake
My words are from Webster’s
My syntax from school
But they roil, a miasma
Consuming their fuel
So what does it mean
To bring to existence
Something not there
Through verve and persistence?
A poet will tell you
That he does not know
How syntax and Webster’s
Present a new show
The verb of create
Affixes its own “ivity.”
It becomes a noun hybrid
A weird recidivity
So what I create
Are not so original
My poems so familiar
No terms aboriginal
That roiling and boiling
Is what I create
It comes from my soul
And the muse that I hate
So nothing from something
Is all that’s unread
And those unwritten poems
Roil in my head
Sleep
If days are shallow
Then nights are deep
Where we practice death
Each night we sleep
With fits of dreams
We see a fractured life
Where reason flees
Replaced by strife
We toss and turn
Touch our core
Jolt back to our world
For one day more
We greet the dawn
Draw back the sheet
Awakening's answer
A fresh heartbeat
We cannot keep
The light we borrow
But sleep still leaves
A new tomorrow
All That Glitters is a Web
An ant sat on a mushroom
On a clear and starry night
Envious of flying things
That flew into the light
Hairy moths and fireflies
Were beyond his aspiration
But he’d like to be a flying gnat
Which was his inspiration
A gnat flew down beside the ant
A slender, fragile flyer
The ant stared with his jealous eye
He could not but admire
“I see that by your lack of wings
You’re not of royal blood”
The gnat said, “You must spend your days
Among the roots and mud.”
“I do,” replied the little ant,
“But gladly would I try
To leave the earth a little while
And see what’s in the sky.”
“Then follow me,” the gnat replied,
“Along this bending stem.
There’s silver strung between the leaves—
We’ll reach the stars from them.”
The ant climbed up the slender stalk;
The gnat flew on ahead.
He landed on a silver strand
And found he could not tread.
“Come lend a hand!” he called below.
The ant rushed to his side,
But every strand he seized held fast,
However hard he tried.
A spider stirred above their heads
And felt the trembling thread.
“Two dinner guests!” her happy cry
“And neither one has fled.”
The gnat tugged at his royal wings;
The ant pulled with his might.
The spider wrapped them side by side
Beneath the stars that night.
The moral of this fable is
When chasing lofty dreams,
Suspect that silver linings—
Are never what they seem.
Kin Yew Spell?
I no I kin spell core wrecked lee
My spell chequer tolled me sew
As no red lions show up here
So my miss takes are rather lo.
I awl so no the spelling ruse
Like the i should fallow e
Accept wen after con son ants
(I mean the litter c.)
Butt those things don’t rely matter
Bee cause I’m sow educated
I also rite on lion
(But eye yam not sew high lee rated.)
And then their are sum hard words
Like oat mill and dye a beat ease
The ladder is a sick nest
The farmer is like Wheaties
To bee shore I spelled this poem core wreck
I used my diction airy.
Butt awl the definitions failed
Its sew extra or din airy!
A Villanelle About Poetry
Poems are gifts from deepest thought
Of those whose souls do sway
They rise from tender words distraught
Poems are tunes of battles fought
And live to see this day
Poems are gifts from deepest thought
Poems are words with meaning fraught
That seek new words to play
They rise from tender words distraught
Poets enchant with ways untaught
They charge their words to say
Poems are gifts from deepest though
Within their lines, a calm is wrought
To soothe our cares away
They rise from tender words distraught
Those shallow souls who know but aught
They mince and shy away
Poems are gifts from deepest thought
They rise from tender words distraught
God’s Breath
Maybe God exhaled or an angel burped
But fresh air came in, Musty air, usurped.
That same God's breath that angel's whim
Is in all of us where red cells swim
God breathed His life to our verdant world
That freshened air from Eden hurled
Six billion strong Earth's humanity
We exhale the haze, pollute the sea
We trade God's breath for comfort's shame
We breathe out fumes in profit's name
Where once was blue and pristine sky
The hazy brown assaults the eye
God sends his wind, restores fresh air
Turns brown to blue with Nature's flair
So we can live through God's sweet breath
Exhaling thanks until breathless death
Motion Is the Journey
1
From ancient seas where life began
And restless creatures learned to roam,
The urge to move, to seek, survive,
Would lead them far from ocean's home.
2
On primitive, uncertain feet,
Our ancestors arose and stood,
They learned to flee the predator
And seek their shelter in the wood.
3
Through valleys deep and open plains,
The hunters chased their running prey,
Where speed and strength determined who
Would live to hunt another day.
4
With sharpened spears and bending bows,
They learned to strike from far away,
The atlatl hurled its dart,
An echo of our guns today.
5
Yet earthbound man looked toward the sky
And watched the soaring eagle fly,
And wondered if his restless feet
Might someday join that boundless sky
6
Then two young brothers, bicycle men,
Upon the dunes at Kitty Hawk,
Defied the pull of gravity
And gave the world a cause to talk.
7
But scarcely had their fragile wings
First carried mankind through the air,
When war transformed their peaceful plane
To deadly combat high up there.
8
With canvas wings and rattling guns,
The biplanes fought above the land,
And pilots learned that flight could bring
Destruction from a human hand.
9
Then mighty carriers crossed the seas,
Their steel decks crowded wing to wing,
And catapults hurled roaring jets
To where the clouds and seabirds sing.
10
From ocean depths where life began
To skyward realms of jet and flame,
The pulse of motion drives all things—
No living creature stays the same.
11
The serpent crawls, the eagle soars,
The wild beasts run, the rivers flow;
In every cell, in every stride,
An urgent fire bids us go.
12
Through shifting lands and endless space,
We run our short, relentless race.
Toward the dark unknown we tread,
Unknowing where the path has led.
13
For life is neither start nor end,
Nor where the final borders bend;
It is the stride, the wind, the grace,
The motion in the present place.
14
The ocean creature, bird, and jet,
The dreams we have not gathered yet—
All prove the goal is not the rest,
It is the journeythat is blest.