I let you now to fly, unpolished, out
Into a cruel world, knives out, poised to pounce
Should I have held on, made the time to grout
The patent gaps, rub out each drossy ounce?
Against my better judgment, I present you now
For eyes to judge: to love or disavow!
#737 On The Magic of Pencils
A wooden pencil
Dances across the blank page
Weaving a dark spell.
#604 On Poetry and Attention
All you need to do
To write
Poetry
Is to pay
Attention.
#557 On The Days
A river of words
Snaking through the valley of
My quotidian days.
On The Self-Doubt of an Unpracticed Poet
These vines of doubt entangle me
Ensnare me in this darkened cage
Each line confounds, embitters me
And shrouds me in benighted rage
In white dreams I imagine me
A shining knight of sky and earth
But light of day proves: oh, poor me!
I’m but a speck, a pebble’s worth!
And so these lines, in spite of me
Come sputtering in halting train
These verses dark accuseth me
I crumble ‘neath my dreams, all vain.
On the Art of Poetry
Now I know how hard
‘Tis to string words into verse:
An art fit for kings!
On The Inexpressible
Between these lines I Try vainly to express the Inexpressible.
On Three Hundred Days
Ev’ry day these three
Hundred days, I write down words
To ward off the Dark.
On Reading Milton
Dense and lustrous verse Each word rolls off the tongue like Dark incantations.
On Placeholders
On days when I can’t
Muster proper words, I send
A haiku in lieu.