The Truth Leaks Out

“You do it anyway.”
The old poet sits in his debris-filled room.
Empty bottles,
one or two with a swallow or two
left in the bottom, enough perhaps
for a drink or two in a pinch;
dirty dishes on the table,
one or two acting as ashtrays, full.

He is cheerful and bleary-eyed,
already on his second bourbon before breakfast.
“You do it anyway.
Create. Try, write. Paint. Whatever you do.”
Even when you are not feeling it.”
He waves his arm and you see –
scraps of paper, each with lines of verse,
scattered among the mess.

“I need a maid. Most of it is trash.”
He reaches into the mess on the table
and pulls out one sheet
and reads a love poem that made me tear up.
“But even when we are not feeling it,
now and again, the truth leaks out.”

About this poem

My mentor as I started writing as a student at Virginia Tech, was a debauched and delightful reprobate of a poet named Robert Hazel. I still hark back to things he told me, often two bourbons or more in. From time to time I have written other “The Old Poet” poems, slowly capturing those wisdoms and a bit of the essence of him that I enjoyed so often.

Tom