Such a poor primer, poetry,
for igniting fires
laid dormant
by excess.
Superficial;
its phosphorescent,
once intermittent gleam,
streaks across the page,
and then, just as quick,
perishes.
Not at all like a slow,
passionate kiss,
a long, fierce rebuke,
...or a quick smack to the forehead.
Each in its way, glistens
the passion of expedience.
Poetry is a spark
from a conflagration, long dead,
which chokes as it sputters--
a vagrant.
It rises, then falls
and settles where it may,
to rest in its silence,
unsaid.
Author notes
Artwork is Don Quixote and Sancho Panza by Honoré Daumier
Cervantes' tale seemed to fit my subject.
In a list
This Is A Comment And Applause Free Zone. Emoticons Are Welcome And Encouraged, However.
Comments
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too often do i think this way ^^
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Wonder upon wonder, you have hit poetry where it too often lays, on a table, in a dusty book.
How horrible is that? JUST AWFUL. 
But anyways, YOUR poetry is read and that is very fine. PLUS, people must read it in school, which is good because then they come to sites like this. BUT, too often they come to steal poems for their poetry writing assignments. But don't worry. Your poems would get A+. 
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One good thing about dead boys...they don't steal poetry...but they make for good poems!
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Boo Hiss
A poem is eternal
The greatest thing there is
To write one is paternal
A child to love, gee whiz
Ridiculous, your poem
You're the vagrant, yes
Don't know where you're going
Going to hell I guess
Tiki Cat
Buy Tiki's Gourmet Cat Food
"Too Good For Humans" -
To dream the impossible ...
is to write the believable
and you have done just that with this poetical truth.
Again, I was pleased to see that Yem is not all humor and avoidance of truth. Your poem adds insightful imagery to the craft of artistic endeavors 
There are plenty of us poets that just keep on restarting those dead ashes by adding new logs to a smoldering fire that burns quietly and yet, in the silence, the forgotten needs to be said time and again in whatever way possible. It's free therapy! "Vagrant hippies of the sixties!" seemed to know what made for peace of mind!
j
y
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LOL, I wondered what was with all the emoticons, then I remembered my author note/prompt thingie.
Hey, I'm from the 70's, lets not make me too old!
I'm sure you get in moods when you write, sometimes the poems end up a little more cynical than is fair? Welcome to this one.
Ye
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Wow, I didn't realize hahhaaha
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I'll take a beautiful poem, please. Just hand it to me and never mind a kiss.
I shall not forget the poem because once I read it, the language and images of it will cling to my mind forever. That is why I am rather choosy about which poems I will read. 
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i really like your last stanza, you've captured the fits and starts of writing perfectly. i think all of my poems are homeless, maybe it's time to build homes.
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Are they homeless? Yes build a home, in whatever way you mean.
I think eventually we see what we write creating an over-all theme, I guess that would be the home, well my little shack anyway.
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Amazing.
Something different from old Yem. Not that youre other work isnt amazing, this is just different.
Malzy -
May the Yemish hero
ride in proudly,
gathering the words
in the grandest act of chivalry,
letting them glow
in the light
of their incarnation
by reading and re-reading them,
thus inspiring the like-minded
to read on and appreciate,
to dip into archives
cleverly hidden,
do as bidden,
read on, read on!
The chivalrous hero laments,
but still retains the fire
to ignite the passion of words
assembled in lines of poetry.
M-C
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As I said before, this is very good and true, the attitude of others towards our poetry anyway.
Also liked the analogy to Quixote, clever!
Sorry not to respect your 'comment and applause free zone' notice.
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Don Quixote
how appropriate Yem
you are Don Quixote!
Poet's were once revered and celebrated...now they cannot make a living at their craft...what a travesty
But the words shall never die
they will live on to inspire the minds
of the chosen few
who honour every sweet syllable
and every luscious line
great poem Yem
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Hehe,
"how appropriate Yem
you are Don Quixote!"
I shall wear that mantle proudly.
Cool comment, thanks.
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Dear Sir Yemassee,
I won't attempt to challenge your assertion
that poetry soon dies with little use.
Except, of course, my lifelong boob perversion
for which I ask no pardon or excuse,
it seems to me that poems will only live
if they are brief and can be simply read.
The longer ones inevitably give
that tedium which makes one feel half-dead.
As example, take the lyric of a song
which often is no longer than one verse -
for even kisses can go on too long
and, without breath, may go from bad to worse!
If "Brevity's the Soul of Wit" as taught,
us poets ought to keep our verses short.
Q: Did Don Quixote write poetry?
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The aged Don Quixote read too many novels on Chivalry and thought himself a Knight. He behaved as if he were of King Arthur's Roundtable. He saw a coarse farm girl, renamed her Dulcinea, and he rode an old hag named Rocinante, believing she was a Knight's steed. Setting out to defend Dulcinea's honor, he enlisted a squire, a naive neighbor named Sancho Panza. He fought windmills, believing them to be giants, he defended galley slaves only to later, when they were free, have them pelt him with rocks...A romantic fool was poor Don Quixote, and knowing these things about him, if he didn't actually write poetry...he should have.
Thanks Hugh.
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Right well I know this story of Cervantes
which we were taught while still young lads at school.
From the tale of Quixote we first learned of chivalry,
through the metaphoric actions of a fool,
towards the girls who still wore frilly panties.
But, just as Don Quixote had his fall,
and even by squire Panza was deceived,
with a miserable end, having lost his only friend,
of his books, his horse and armour being relieved,
we learned that some girls wore no pants at all!!
From your brilliant, short precis of Quixote's history,
I can see that you are just as learned in all these things as me.
I enjoyed reading your poem and your precis in answer to my rhetorical question.
Regards, Hugh.
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I knew it was rhetorical, but I had a chance to make a statement about writers and our flighty ways so I grabbed it.
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How you catch my thinking sometimes! It occured to me the other day that if a poem is not a passion within your heart or thought, it is soon forgotten, and I've gone back through my own and discovered lines I hardly recognize.
On occasion, someone will tap into my archives by chance and one will surface. Often there is only an acknowlegement, and I know my passing thought has met it's demise.
I am happy to see this one today, though, because you were in my thoughts strong yesterday, my friend. And I'm a vagrant wandering in right now, tilting at windmills, and realizing how much your poem is like Don Quixote's character.
~Karen
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Thank you. Weird, I originally had a section in this poem about the windmills but I needed a contrast to that line and couldn't think of one so I deleted it.
I was on your mind yesterday...tell It was because you saw a lot of food on TV wasn't it!
I'm sorry you feel like a vagrant. Not feeling any better?
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