I would learn of a thing
Then I would learn even more
To know about stuff
Makes one feel more secure.

Yet then it had its downside too
The way of imparting
The knowledge I knew.

‘You boy, Wilson, get up now
Go there to the front and stand
And tell all the class of
The Roman Invasion
And leave nothing out
Understand!
Or perhaps you’ll tell us
Of Prometheus
And why he is Unbound’
Thus I stood there at the front
And whispered so terrified
For though I tried, I really did
I could not make a sound.

To publicly echo what I felt
A nightmare beyond Hell
And yet I really wanted
To pass on what I’d learned.
But a star on the chart
On the classroom wall
I rarely, rarely earned.

It always was my Achilles heel
To speak and to be heard
As more and more I stumbled
The more I sounded absurd.

But when I expressed
Myself in verse
I finally shrugged
Off shyness’ curse
And streams of nonsense
From me flow
Through people’s ears
And out they go
Yes indeed
I shed that curse
I found release
In poems’ verse…

©Joe Wilson – The fear of public speaking…2017