I've been asked a lot where
I get ideas for my poems and
I don't know how to answer without
sounding fatuous or enigmatic
or precious and tiresome
To say I don't know is truth and lie
Can you know and not know
Or maybe you don't recognize
till you do and then you knew
you knew it all along?
So I just start writing and see where it goes
Usually I end up more scribe than author
for there is an impetus I can't name
that drives my thoughts and my pen
like spirit writing advertised at seances
What I've learned is that poems
don't come from the atmosphere
they don't grow on a tree like
ripe peaches waiting to be picked
if anything, poems pick you
Mine come from muscle memory
and kneejerk responses and too long
silenced grief and frustration and
feelings forced into tiny envelopes
that can't hold them and split
like a rug you stumble over because
too much junk has been swept under it
then you pick yourself up, dust yourself off
purge the clutter and walk smoother
more confident in your picture frame
and joy too big and bold and bombastic
earth splitting, ear shattering love
what is and what could have been
what was and is, now and then and never
tiny nonpareils of peace sprinkled
on fairy cakes at a child's tea party
where the grownups are drunk
and raging and chaotic
still we sip our tea and smile
Poems source from my mind tree's trunk
and course through me like sap in heartwood
They're don't come from or through, they are me.
They advocate for me
they are my ambassadors
Some verse bursts like a lanced boil
others leak out in weeping you can't hide
some bubble up like a well tapped
others sit and stew, marinating till
the time comes for them to speak out
One thing I know for sure is you
have to write when it's time. Don't push down
go big and deep and loud. Say stuff that
might sound silly. Don't just say it,
spray it like a huge graffiti mural
Don't let the hakken-kraks hush you
don't second-guess or back down
it's poetry and there are no wrong ones
save those you don't give voice
that would be the real tragedy
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