Chameleons feed on light and air:
Poets' food is love and fame:
If in this wide world of care
Poets could but find the same
With as little toil as they,
Would they ever change their hue
As the light chameleons do,
Suiting it to every ray
Twenty times a day?
- An Exhortation, Percy Bysshe Shelley
Form: Alphabet poem
The Poet
A poet hides their sacks of words
Bulging with blood and flesh.
Chameleons are less shy, and
Dearer to the ecosystem.
Embarrassing words, those
For the dearest of hearts:
Grandmothers and
Hardworking men
Infuse the poet, from eyes to pen.
Jailed are the words inside:
Kind, creamy words
Like a pastel oil painting
Multicoloured in hue
Nestled between scales and
Orifices.
Poets print them in patterns,
Quelling the colour with structure,
Rigid as the rising sun
Sets below the hills each evening.
They do because they must;
Unless the world is ending or
Victory fresh on inebriated tongues,
Who wants to know how much you love them?
Xylophones are less shy in volume.
Your poet is folding words in their sweater, in
Zebra print, in polka dots.
Gender:
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