what is that phrase?

i read.  i read poetry.  i read a lot of poetry.  it is with poetry that nourishes me.  makes me feel the most alive.  i read poetry every morning on the john.  i read poems when i have a few moments at work.  i read poems, in books, in journals, online and in print.  i read a lot of other things.  but it is poetry that makes my life. 

i write.  i write a lot of poetry.  sometimes it doesn't look like poetry.  or sound like poetry.  if one subscribes to the phrase, 'life is poetry -- everything is poetry', then the words and phrases jotted in my notebooks with my ugly handwriting is poetry.  blogging is poetry.  walking to and fro among the earth with song and snatches of language is poetry.  writing poetry is that what makes my life.

i used to sweat about the immortality of poetry.  the immortality of the poet.  the immortal phrase.  i used to have a big ego.  i try to diminish my ego.  i am ego-less.  i am working toward being sans ego. 

i am and am not a natural poet.  i have worked toward poetry from the moment i read my first real poems.  my obsession with film nourishes my poetry.  i attempt a cinematic language.  i watch a movie that hits me with a wow and i think, goddamn, i can use that technique in writing.  i learn by going, watching and reading.  i wanted the marmoreal phrase.  i now want a perfect awkwardness.   

i used to agonize over writing.  to the point where i was not writing.  i got over that agony because i am a poet.  i write poems.  i read poems.  poetry is not immortal.  the poet is not immortal.  the poet is the man/woman who, to paraphrase another poet who was paraphrasing still another poet, is there when the bread comes out of the oven.  the poet is the man/woman who says, welcome.