WAGblog

The Poet and Her Poem - a new poem

This poem starts in one place and ends up somewhere completely different and unexpected (by me at any rate!). This happens via some rather whimsical twists and turns of poetic events. Enjoy!

THE POET AND HER POEM

Sure global warming will assure the end
of our and most species, I welcome
this early winter weather,
thinking a hard freeze here
surely means in Siberia it is snowing again
at last, the permafrost safe and refrozen.
In this building of elderly and disabled
no one shares my enthusiasm.
I don’t blame them. I’m not one to enjoy
the cold myself. As poet, I want to say
that enjoyment is beside the point

when my poem balks, refuses pointblank,
sick of negativity and worry. Says, joy
is the only point. Speaking of which,
my poem wants, thinking a moment --
it clearly has not planned
this out beforehand – to go shopping.
In the snow? Yes, in the snow.
Now, here’s a secret
small enough to fit in a ring box:
poets indulge their poems, spoiling
them into little domestic tyrants
because it’s the only way to keep them
happy, the only way to keep them coming.

So we bundle into coats and red wool hats
and head out, first for Enjambment & Sons
to get support hose, then to Prosody’s
for a good pen and some paper.
Finally we hit the Purple Prose Emporium
where we buy three vivid verbs
and have a cup of hot new noun
in the basement cafeteria.
Before we know it, it is after five.
A shopping novice, my poem is
too tired to care about dropping letters
and smiles -- I mean, similes, too tired
to turn another line. I pick it up
and carry it in my arms,
light as a puff of smoke.

At home, I’ll put my poem to bed,
tell it not to worry about a thing,
that it is cold outside, that pain passes,
that time is always now where we are.
When the poem wakes, I will write about---?
Hell, there is always botany and bookbinding,
the People’s Republic of China.
I’ll think of something.

Posted by pamwagg at December 8, 2007 02:41 AM | TrackBack