Tentatively posting one of my own poems, something I usually decline to share.

To thy Words

Midnight, drawn upright
To write and think of the bard
To shrug off sleep in the half light
 
If palm to palm is holy palmer’s kiss
Then my pen is this
Holy writer’s psalm
 
To thine own self be true
I wonder was he
The one whose words remember life in mine?
 
At least he did not deny
Their forced entry
From hand to paper
 
I shy from them
And would deny their order
If they gave me chance
 
They cut me on their birth
Their delicate thin lines
My blood living on parchment
 
Each syllable its own jagged issue
Wrenched from my fingers
Even as I try to cradle them close
Like him, I cannot be false
I am victim to the words
As they lay me bare
 
Through them I may bear no false honesty
No truer words are written
And to my own words I remain true