Ignore poetry

at your peril,

even a teenage crush

that rips your heart apart

as you find meaning

to your tears and anguish

can be found to be more beneficial

once explored in any shapely

form and luscious lips worth kissing

will do more for your soul

than feigning interest

in the rights of a triangle

tilted on its side….Ignore poetry

and when hoping to court

your love with words,

think back to the sentence

passed down

by ties and blinkered doctrine, dressed

to impress, who exactly,

for their ignorance

could leave you tongue tied,

when Shakespeare, Ginsberg, Armitage and Lanyer

will loosen the moment

and leave you breathless…

Ignore

the words of the unloved, uneducated

in matters of the soul,

for they chase dreams

that are exchanged

for coin and balance, when

all you really want

is to see the world

explode in a perfect thought.

Ian D. Hall 2020