Don'T Steal A Poet's Words Poem by Patti Masterman

Don't steal a poet's words don't degrade his meaning-
Degrade his children, denigrate his home,
But never look down on his words.

His children come from his loins;
His verses come out of his soul,
Though his home belong to his elders,
And even his children are half his and half the world's

But his words are nearly all of him,
The flames of which torch him nightly,
The breath of the world’s mind breathing him in,
Day by endless day, year to interminable year,
The thin wisps of his smoke growing ever more slender,
Going deeper inside like long drags of tobacco

Imbibing his condensate and outdistancing his distillate,
The spirit and totality wrung out of him, raw and bloody:
All the fallen stars he ever saw;
The text of all creation rewritten in his voice.

Every man creates himself knowingly or unknowingly,
With his diligent words- even if he never act on them.