Inevitable Poetic Sadness

Inevitable Poetic Sadness

As I do sit and think
Feeling
Seemingly on the very edge of the brink
Of the inevitable sadness of poetic mortality
And there while listening to the sounds of Keats’s Nightingale
I need to know how such words came to be

Where do such men, as poets, like Keats,
Learn to write such glorious sounds?
And wonder why can’t I, just as the many others
Who came long before
Write with such treasured skill and clarity

As I do sit, read, and study
The pens ink of all the others
Then left still to listen for hours more
Becoming ravaged by the visions
Of which the words spill
Thus with envy
Wonder why can’t I
Write with such splendor?

Still I embark on this fruitless quest
Giving all that is my best
To pen and pine
As I write this great whine

There is so much more that I can’t do well, than can
That I just as soon be scribbling in sand
Yet still
This compulsion compels