Charlatan vs Crown or Clown

I am a poet, foremost, first.

I’ll not let symptoms interfere -

though balance wayward, sway or turn,

twitch, stumble, gout, or catch a fall,

handshake infirm or aching joint,

kick boxing though the woken night,

afflictions’ visit of the old,

arthritis - yes, the list is long.

But they’ll not dominate my lines,

or freeze me out from what I do,

as shuffle through the tipping point

to reach beyond imposed ill health.

Such imposition will not steal -

some claimed pathetic fallacy.

I am a poet, foremost, first.

I’ve words to write, as muse dictates,

a smith to bend wrought curlicues,

as wonder, wander through my world

of grief and joy, community;

apprentice journeyman unfolds

both secrets and the obvious,

with craft of glyphs laid side by side,

by rhythm berthed at pulse’s core.

I’ll not provide my illness space

to bully, assert, cower me.

This charlatan can’t have his way,

that sham, fake, but a shameless quack;

my days are mine and so will be.

I’ll prove I’m poet first, foremost,

and not an advert, symptom’s reign.

It has no voice, less give it so,

can claim no power, unless allowed,

for it’s my verse from first to last,

that moves, if so, beyond that chance

encounter with drained dopamine -

whatever is afflicting you,

some metaphor that draws the line,

that illness claiming it is prime.

If you read me, my sick complaint,

then I have failed to dominate,

instead of being, complement,

the stanza as my one concern.

Treat as imposter vain disease;

why rant, accord significance?

Exhibit crown, though maybe clown

that versifies because I must.

I’ll not use fighting talk again,

as if the bout what’s all about,

this cheat who thinks the knockout his,

but won’t deflect me from what’s mine.

So while my will, ignore the lout,

his spouting in my ear I’m ill -

it’s an ill wind that blows no good -

creative stirred in paint and word,

and peerless gold when friends involved,

as I count peers in my surround.