The thing About Poets

Two Poems and an Open Mic Performance

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

Alchemized

Poets conjure a moment to inhabit
Stretching it taut, elongating it
Palpating the edges to extrude buried truth
Bellowing their questions at the boundary of time
They linger within the refrain
BECOMING
alchemists of experience
©2025 Andrea Curran

Click play above for my live performance with the Northern Chapter of the Columbine Poets of Colorado.

Open Mic Night

The thing about Poets

We are masters of creation.
Translators of experience.

We begin with an empty winery,
A book shop.
A cafe.
An empty room at the library.

White walls and hardwood floors.
Or, murals and concrete.
Plastic chairs, padding brown with age.
Or, rusting metal.

There’s a silver mic and a speaker.
Sometimes there’s a stage.

Lights blinding fluorescence.
Or, a flickering yellow dim with age.
Sometimes there’s cookies and tea,
Others, only hungry poets fill the room.

And, Only, could be lonely.
Except when two or more poets enter a room.
It becomes a conversation.
The room a cacophony of words.
That feed our bellies.

This is our sermon
Poetry our prayer.
Words spoken a manifestation.
Of community.

Spoken with shaky hands,
A lump in our throats.
Walls become;
The warm bed of a lover
Or, the oceans tide
The migration of geese.
The grief we’ve buried deep within ourselves.
Now exposed

Poets don’t stay strangers long;
Our experience connects us.
The rhythms pushing blood through each heart.
As we exist within the meter of eachothers longing.

Collecting phrases like pebbles

To take home with us.
Words our minds roll over
Like fingers over worry stones.

We drive home in silence.
Forgetting to grab a bite to eat.
©2025 Andrea Curran

Enjoy this post? Here’s some others you may enjoy!

The Offing

Honeysuckle

Or stop by the Library!

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I’ll leave the light on for you! Much Love — Andy