What is the purpose of words,
If not to touch without touching,
To invite the reader
To find inside themselves
The touch the poet
Cannot give.
To reveal what the reader
Did not know was there,
Could not recognize,
Or admit...
Or hid from themselves.
Too many spend their lives
Unaware of their true desires,
Or following different paths,
Wondering,
As they wander,
What lays down that other road.
What sins might they have enjoyed,
What pleasurable madness
Might have been committed,
What memories been formed,
And...
What adventures might still lay before?
The poet has been down,
Or has imagined, where
That other road might lead,
What may lay beside its path,
And, with only words,
Tries to take the reader's hand,
And lead them to at least
Some of those new adventures.
Donovan Baldwin