How to make poetry
Weeks go past unnoticed
At times months and years
Undeviating from the mundane
As your creativity aestivates –
Looks for sustenance, and,
Yearns to be inspired.
You sit by the brook,
You stare through the walls.
Yet, not a word to find
No matter how long the grind.
Then, there comes a day
A moment ever so fleeting
Have ready your pen and
A piece of paper to grab.
Even as you feel the shudder within
Thoughts begin to ebb and rise.
Maybe it was the fall of a leaf,
Or the golden colors of autumn?
Maybe it is the hustle of everyday life
The love you recently lost?
Or the hunger newly found?
Try not to force rhythm and rhyme
As words break your dam’s wall,
Rushing to be somewhere on time.
Swifter than your fingers can write
Carried on a tsunami of thoughts,
Arrive words that sound so right.
Even as you open your flood-gates
And, try, try to your best might
To quickly pen your mind’s insight.
Thoughts like salt in water dissolve
And words like water give and absolve
Even as it flows and carries, it can slip —
Shapeshift and evaporate.
Yet you’ve managed
Through furious scrambling
To contain a few of those
Through words albeit far from perfect
But enough to immortalize
In poetry, a fraction of thought.
And the pen leaves the paper,
Not knowing when they meet again.
You’re none but a scribe for thoughts
That found you, overwhelmed you.
Those frantic words, on contrary,
Are but vessels for those thoughts,
And, that’s how you make poetry.
