THE POET'S HAT

"Who, except the poets, reads poetry?." - Babette Deutsch

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Don't stop now, pencil!

Don't stop now , pencil!
The words still hover 
In the cerebral grey,
Formless as the pre-dawn earth
Yet thrusting with intent.

Scratch, scribble, cross-out and wait,
Tip on page,
Ready to obey the command
That brain directs through arm and hand
To waiting blankness.

See, the thing appears
As graphite strokes 
Crawling, crudely into reason,
Spewed into a physical realm
To live…..
Or die, upon a whim.
Hand crushes paper,
Flings it across the room.

poetry doesn't come...

I find
poetry doesn't come to me
like it did

No, this poetry hides in the back of my rambling mind
looking for moments of portent
moments of truth

Moments of what will never be
so the poem hangs in the air
on baited breath
waiting for a moment of reality
and nothing gets written

But guilt hangs around to mock my desire
to steal the words from my pen
Was any poem ever written without this despair?

..and still I battle on..

she stared at the page
words, woven into lines,
long and lilting
but meaning escaped her

  *  *  *  *  *  *

Blank page, cold white wall,
Freezes all thought in icy brightness.
Then, small red spider,
Pinhead size,
Like a running grain of paprika
Defies the wasteland 
And breaks the spell.	

  *  *  *  *  *  *

..and then at last..

Poetry came back tonight
Quiet as a cat
Rubbing against my calves
Saying "I'm here"

*  *  *  *  *