I never know if I have a poem.
If like a flower bud
it’s been nipped by frost.
Too little water.
If it started and went to sleep.
Too fragile to tolerate despair,
run naked through the brambles.
Frightened by the trickle
of dreams around it.
Or if the words are ready.
If it wants to speak.
If it’s alien without a home.
Or perhaps poetry
is a peculiar kind of fantasy.
A reality parallel to ours.
Sometimes intersecting,
sometimes not.
But I listen to sounds in the house.
Feel tensions in my body.
Stare at windows
and then, things outside windows.
Then a yearning starts.
A sigh.
I am scared and then serene.
I balance on a thread
of invisible proportions.
I think like a poet.
Choose forms as silly
as they are necessary.
To say as simply as I can,
I am alive.
I am ready to explode.
To wave my arms.
To join the universe in burning.
To dive into the surf
and scare dolphins.
A primal force
playing with language,
looking for its planet.