Speechless

I am a poet.
Or I like to think I am.
I can pull words together
like a jewelers
and string them along, like diamonds
to be cast in the sky
as a new constellation
that lovers across the world will see
and say
look!
the heavens themselves have recognized our love!

I am a chef of letters
with frying pans and baking sheets and pots of random concoctions
all thrown together with a little heat
some spicy,
meant to induce a little pain along with the pleasure
of swallowing my ideas.
others smooth
soft swishing sounds that say it's all the same
the you swirl around for a bit
to fully satisfy your sweet tooth.

I'll shape the way you make me feel
out of verbal clay
thrown down, again and again
squishy, unformed and useless
but with practiced hands
patience, and an imagination that always keeps me entertained
I'll keep
spinning it and molding it
until you've been compared
to Romeo, Lancelot, Mr. Darcy
the Prince albert to my Queen Victoria.

but no, I am this generation's spoken Pablo Picasso.
Actually- more like Van Gogh
swirling colors of sounds on my personal palette
just to throw them across a canvas of eardrums
so that the reverberations
and the pounding of my own nervous heart
are combined
with a symphony of crickets
and that noise with no name
of the wind going shhhh over the grass
the moon's laughter
and the city's tired sigh
into my own starry night

and then next day
in the sun's light
I am a gardener extraordinare
growing rhymes and ideas
in the warm sunshine
supporting them with a nurturing hand
and tediously combing through their ranks
for unwanted weeds
that have the tendency
to make my flowers choke

I am a poet.
but whenever I see you
all I can say
as my brain going a thousand miles a minute
is
"hey."