the artists of words know
its 2a.m. when the words come retching out
after an hour of damp papers
they weren't supposed to come out
not today
no, you can't tell your friends
because only a poet knows
the ****** battle
you are fighting
inside your
head.

The northern woods are delicately sweet,
   The lake is folded softly by the shore,
   But I am restless for the subway’s roar,
The thunder and the hurrying of feet.
I try to sleep, but still my eyelids beat
   Against the image of the tower that bore
   Me high aloft, as if thru heaven’s door
I watched the world from God’s unshaken seat.
I would go back and breathe with quickened sense
   The tunnel’s strong hot breath of powdered steel;
But at the ferries I should leave the tense
      Dark air behind, and I should mount and be
   One among many who are thrilled to feel
      The first keen sea-breath from the open sea.