My Balloons and Bandages

Some say it is a waste of time,
this poetry and prose
(sadly, I admit that I
am often one of those).

What use these words written on
rarely looked-at pages?
(prisoners of conscience in their
ink and paper cages).

I often ask this question
long into the night -
is it a form of loneliness
that forces me to write?

Then down city streets I walk
amid the humdrum crowd
where everything is hurried
and every voice is loud.

Into the hush of Waterstones
oftentimes I've strolled.
to buy a book by Rilke
Keats or Sharon Olds.

Sharon's book 'The Father'
is pressed between my palms.
The elegies contained within
read like holy psalms.

All the joy and pain of life
is held between these covers.
Unread poems lie between
the sheets like sleeping lovers.

This is why I write
and this is why I read:
poetry's my bright balloon:
my bandage when I bleed.