WRITING POEMS [PART I] At this time what I write comes out as poetry. I sigh. It’s hard work: more dense than prose, clotted often, or shy to venture forth. We speak in prose; it flows and swirls and spreads in a river leading to the sea of human life, br

WRITING POEMS

[PART I]

At this time what I write
comes out as poetry.
I sigh. It’s hard work:
more dense than prose, clotted
often, or shy to venture forth.

We speak in prose; it flows
and swirls and spreads in a river
leading to the sea of human life,
breeding volumes of fiction,
series, vasty worlds in space,
distinguished non-fiction tomes,
and the impressive cathedral
of the Oxford Dictionary
that consumed its creators’ lives.

Poems? Different beasts.
They tempt you with their brevity.
Just an image, they whisper,
I won’t take long, I swear.
So open your eyes, enjoy your life,
or close your eyes and listen;
let your imagination swirl.
An invisible smell twitches your nose;
an itch begs to be scratched.

You can ignore the poetic urge.
Poems are often shy, and drift away.
Doesn’t matter, they mutter,
shrug and dissolve like ghosts
in the sun, unloved
and thus unborn.

Or the cat demands her food;
there’s the supermarket run;
a loved one’s friendly question
and the poem’s vanished
like a chirruping bird hidden in
the shivering undergrowth
that’s still now. The poem-bird
has flown, gone, irrevocably lost.