By Don Kenton Henry
So you thought you’d seen it and heard it all, my friend
And that life ran true without ever a bend
That other’s words were sanctified and you trusted without end
To every orphan, stray, and stranger you shared your home and heart again and again
You were not a stone
But reality is that perception is often a façade
For what appeared linen walls were often made of brick
And seeing through them, like a lover’s words, was too often a trick
But you listened and you trusted and they kissed and they lied
To your face with insincere flattery and guile
Picking your heart like a pocket all the while
So you asked yourself
Why try to hide
It’s a house of mirrors in want of a God
And when once you gave, you now deny
And now, time has lined your heart with armor
And your soul is steeled by life’s lessons learned
Never giving into other’s schemes
Or even the most well-meaning of intentions
You proceed with circumspection
Sharing neither your dreams or confessions
Safe but alone
Your former self has become a distant reflection
An island with no connection to a greater, higher thing
You’ve become a stone
Suitors elevate what they cannot have
Admirers hold you on a pedestal
And your hubris runs amok
And love is always finite and nothing good perpetual
You trust nothing to luck
You are safe alone
In your mind, you’ve become famous as a sagacious judge of character
You approach romance like a business plan
Trusting nothing to fate
Your reality is manicured
Self-served on a gilded plate
Kismet and serendipity in which you once so much believed―
Which in your poet’s heart once had a home . . .
Have been evicted
You’ve become a stone
Judgmental words of critics abound but are dismissed with resignation
Their acceptance is not sought
Self-absolution rationalized by denial born of adaptation
from pride’s hammer is what’s wrought
You are pragmatic in the throes of preservation
A stone repels all rain and hail
Against the elements it doth prevail
You gird your mind with an elevated perception of self-worth
and your loins with the company of co-conspirators in mutual, consensual exploitation
Conspirators for whom you cannot care and therefore by whom you cannot be hurt
To the point your wisdom has become a curse
Oh, please do not remain a stone
Let the poet man come home
Let him find his heart again
Let him see a world with less sin
Let his resurrection now begin
Permit the poet man not die alone
Permit his poet heart seek not to roam
Forsake the persona jaded by years of infidelity of others
And his own
Oh, please poet man do not remain a stone
Call poetry and love and fate
And tell them to come home
Let them find a way down a friendly road to an open gate
Where once more the poet man trusts each
Where love owns the mortgage on a heart that lust once leased
And where that heart heeds the call of what your soul doth preach
Hearken to your poet heart o’ poet man
Come home
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