A Poet's Burden Poem by Tony Adah

A poet's burdens
Does not shake the world
The world's burden
Rather shakes the poet.

Geography teaches that
The world is round
So we were told initally
And the world wraps its pains
Round and wears this hydrocoel
On the poet and it fits him well

He runs round picking the bits
From the decrees the tyrant
Churns on his helpless lot
Or pick from the dumps of the refuse
A bunch of masses lay their hands
Or still from the martydom
Of the gallant few
Or even from the craving
Of the masses for the splendor
That nature offers in a way splendid
Or crimp in like a snail perturbed.

The world is a brittle place
And the poet is not crippled
By the gritty bite the world offers
On his platter of paper and pen
It dumps its faeces on the poet
But nature illuminates the
Poet with the radiance of its beauty
And in all the poet carries a load
Of the world with a pad of his poems.