On the pains, travails, and joys of writing poetry

        
The bitch on the tip of my tongue            
came out all wrong            
She wasn't sexy at all            
even when I dressed up her words            
with a flashy new font            
stripped them to the bone            
and edited their ass off            
still she sat            
poetic legs firmly crossed            
frowning on the page            
duller than a blind date nightmare            
with the Vogons            
           
She seemed as frumpy            
as old Granny Gluebones  
in a brown tweed suit            
peering through horn-rimmed glasses            
the ingredients of her poetic juice          
all dried up and confined to dust            
under rusty whalebone corsets          
a surefire recipe for writer's block            
           
So I tried my best            
to tickle her verbs            
I sprinkled her adjectives with spice    
jiggled her stanzas            
and teased her internals with rhyme           
but she never even winked            
           
Her verses were playing hard to get            
I would need more than a literary dildo--            
even Shakespeare might struggle          
to find a finger of inspiration here            
but my poet's pride demanded a result            
after all            
I was paying for her lines            
with my time            
           
Then at last            
on the cab ride home            
the miracle happened            
We were thrown together            
by a bump in the road            
and suddenly            
gracing the city lights            
her scent seemed headier      
than a classic rose            
           
In the twitch of a heartbeat            
she'd let her hair down            
taken off her glasses            
and unbuttoned the top of her blouse              
           
Her legs were no longer crossed            
           
Oh, she said:            
Is this what you want?            
           
Now, am I your kind of poem?

Believe me,  
   I have met more poets than humans.
Believe me,  
     I find them apart and not among us.
Believe me,  
     I know they aren’t easy to behave towards.
Believe me,  
     I read unique feelings just by feeling their words!
 
They are  
     writing as they’re in heaven, not on Earth…
They are  
     absorbed on the beauties felt by humans, nonetheless  
They are  
     abstracted from human disabilities, despite that, damn,
They are  
     suffering their miseries because of the passion they feel for them!
 
Beyond  
     understanding beauty, poets link human senses with life discernment.
Beyond  
     making sense, to all kind of circumstances, poets provide substance.
Beyond  
     inspiring realization, for uncertain ways, poets' vision the path clears.
Beyond  
     giving hope in the deepest despair, poets wipe away the tears!
 
Great  
     enlightening they have been providing through History.
Great  
     belvederes for landscapes revealing novel life posture.
Great  
     remedies for alleviating the misfortunes of love, gently.
Great  
     demand humanity is still requesting, in need, for poetry!
 
Poets,  
     almost nothing in the whole humankind,  
     almost everything for each human being!

I may never escape my fate.  
I have fallen  
and must drown,    
a shadow in a bucket of words--    
but I have always known this    
and so my sadness grows cosy    
until even the roses seem happy    
to remind me of life's thorns.    
   
Every day they float to the top,    
ragged pearls pretending wisdom    
words bursting around me    
bobbing free to tickle my chin    
nuzzling the tips of ears.    
   
To stay alive,  
I must help them escape    
although that act itself defeats my own purpose.    
Somehow I claw them into air,  
polish a deluge of memories    
before I choke and my head slips    
down...    
   
New phrases conspire as I sleep    
whispering to me in secret    
with tempting combinations    
to overpower and tire,    
each one eager to feast    
ready to gorge on time's blood    
their victory ever certain    
a pack of cocksure dogs gleefully chasing a cat    
and n'ere a tree in sight.    
   
In my waking hours they refuse to stop    
so I must kick to stay afloat    
toes curled tightly,  
I hug my knees and scream...    
   
Once,    
when I was foolish enough to dream of my own escape    
when I still had strength to be bold,    
I summoned a giant's breath    
diving down for the bottom of the bucket    
until my lungs burned to explode.    
   
But there was    
no bottom to reach    
only letters    
mocking me in silence    
streaming slowly from tiny bubbles    
forming themselves    
into words.    
   
Perhaps one day    
you may stumble upon my death    
find my bloated belly    
grinning at the sky where it rests    
the price of freedom    
at last awash with words

 
To all the poems
I don't recall I wrote
to all the unfinished
mongrel scraps
left starving in the orphanage I made
To all the drunken solitary lines
blurted out to no-one
and never met a page
To the devils of inspiration
the stillborn squibs
with their cracked false dawns
sparking truths that never spat a flame
And to all the critical direction
the signposts leading nowhere
until the lights went down
to every bitter sweet burden
of rejection and acclaim

I want you to know
if I had time over
I would write you
all again






 

Is writing like your favourite pet?    
keep it warm in each typeset  
let it be the font that you select    
    
A luxury, the indulgent need    
the window's of a soul exposed    
the oak grows tall, from the acorns seed    
   
Loves carvings on the bark    
the knife that cut outlines of heart    
flint arrows, each line composed    
   
The line that's drawn, on the  archers  bow      
is it, the life coach, that helps you grow.    
Sinew, stretched taught in each elbow    
   
Vanities catgut tight, across the bridge    
resonance within the wood    
heard tune, in appreciation or misunderstood    
   
For the star's they whisper sweet    
a played refrain, in a myriad of key's    
the stillborn baby cries!    
   
Excitement is the act of exorcise,    
gestation,    
for the gaze.    
How cute that child,    
in each parent's eyes    
   
Is there time for prayers and grace?    
laurel's they will not suffice    
a starting pistol, the inner self, its own dictates,    
as clean white page awaits