This striving open soul

shall ever and till time ends

write words that come from

the divine passion that lays

its beating heart inside

my rising chest.

 

I will write poems of the soul

that speak about all that is

fathomable and unfathomable

inside the wondering minds

and the tender beating hearts

of the whole human family.

 

Nothing shall sway me other

or take away my quest

to seek out the sinews

of what makes this

awful human flesh

so filled with good and bad

and horror and paradise.

 

Indeed, I will live and breathe

and find words, within this enterprise

of seeking out the human soul,

that penetrate deeper than a dagger

and find in their concourse of meaning

the very stuff of blood and paradox.

 

These will be my poems of the soul

that seek, in my striving open heart,

truths that may be more than

just these words can reveal or tell

and greater than any human soul can feel.

 

In memory of Walt Whitman

 

28/9/2016