Inner Voices/Outer Audiences

I went to hear the visiting poet 

She explained she is most herself 

When alone in a room

Alone and writing a poem

Poetry is the outlet for one’s inner voice

This public appearance, she said, means nothing 

Just a lot of flim and flam 

A put-on self that others should not trust 

To know her true self, this visitor said, read her poetry 

This sounded reasonable

For a moment

Sort of

But I wasn’t convinced

I learned a lot from her public appearance

What she looks like, how she sounds, what she laughs at

Her mannerisms, her quirks

Her enthusiasms, her antipathies

More than I got from the poems she read     

And I’m not certain that one’s inner voice 

Winds up unedited in one’s poetry

Writers, I believe, always write with an audience in mind  

Sometimes specific 

Usually more vague and general

But I doubt we are ever alone in a room

For myself, I tailor what I write to that imagined audience

Perhaps looking for acceptance or appreciation

There are many things I never say

I avoid politics and social controversies

For fear of offending this person or that

Likewise for religion, God, the afterlife 

Sex is too intimate a topic for me 

Secrets about my family

Hurtful things

I shuffle forth with the tried and true  

My inner voice, I fear, winds up rather bland

Constrained by taboos and rules of political correctness

I could, of course, write secret poems 

Just for myself 

That never see the light of day

But my in-house censor would still be busy at work 

There are countless things about myself I never want to know