Find a Poet Not a poser, not a "it's just a hobby" poet. Find one who mumbles lines as they scramble for a pen at breakfast; who shakes their head randomly when their thoughts aren't rhyming properly;  who has notebooks stashed around the house that you must never touch.
2. Listen Savor the spoken words, for those are harder to express. Keep in mind that they can't be edited and re-written, and be forgiving when a mistake is made.
3. Read The body speaks as loudly as words on a page do. When their eyes are closed or focused on the ceiling and the fingers are tapping out syllables, recognize the unique process. Respect the need for quiet, because if you look closely, you can read the poem on their face before they write it on the page.
4. Write Write your story together. Grab hold of the pen and hang on as you move across the page of life. Sometimes you will dance across, others you will be dragged. You may have to cross out a word, or a line, or a page, but don't give up. Discouragement is a poet's biggest enemy, inarticulateness their biggest fear. So end each day with a semi-colon, because the story will never end the way you think it will, and there must be room for more. There is always room for more, more words, more laughter, more tears, more love,
When you love a poet.

Indecisiveness**
            enough as it is,
I stay in the confines of my comfort,
choices I begun to prolong.
Waiting for something
probably won’t come.

I walk back and forth,
And climbing ladders  
             - up and down,
       an unchanging routine
    draining the life-force
         of my pretend smile.
Sluggishly the plot-holes
       starts to appear
   messing the careful laid-out script
                 I master to act.
Barriers starts to crack, little by little
I gather the courage
   to put the imaginary duck-tape
   to hold them together
       a little while longer
until the final choice, is made sure
without fear and hesitation.

Photographs sure carry a weight, don't they? The black and white and sepia tones speak with a voice that has known sorrow.

They tell the story of fifteen minutes between small talk and bad news.
      Of a motorcycle, a truck, and a bottle.

They inform wary viewers of a Saturday funeral.
       Only six sunsets after a Saturday marriage.

They advise a newlywed widow to let go, to open her heart to love once more.
        Although they know she can now only live in fifteen minute increments.

"But maybe," they say, "she will never take 900 seconds for granted again."

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

am us     just me
can          one
ever          be
two         some day
or is        alone
always   to die
become dust
  with sanity
crashingdown
a hull    a shell
empty   cast
down    to ground
until        the
end         then
we            or I
may       know?

It was many and many a year ago,
  In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
  By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
  Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
  In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
  I and my ANNABEL LEE;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
  Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
  In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
  My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
  And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
  In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
  Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
  In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
  Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
  Of those who were older than we—
  Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in heaven above,
  Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
  Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
  In her sepulchre there by the sea—
  In her tomb by the side of the sea.

away above into

     float if float is possible

with pretty nice people

talking like angels
                                   in prose
into a mystic vision                 where steeples
climb   true   heights
                 where stars are

light and dark is
     a palace

of golden streams
             honey flowing  from

every tongue

free
            money is not needed

All is beautiful.

The evening light is glowing
Scattering shadows behind

Drizzling down the sky
The rain composes a night rainbow.

Under the moonlight.

First of all,
I wonder why,
So many people dream at night.
What is the wonder,
I shall see,
That ensnares many like me.

Once there was a mad Arabian poet,
he said,
who wrote a Book of Death
and an Unsettling Couplet
and inspired him
in the way that a car-wreck
may inspire a tattooist’s
gruesome designs.

O, the frightening things
that ran through his mind!
So unsettled was he,
so disturbed.
O, the way that they leered
at his table they dined!
So confused were his colleagues,
so perturbed.

God, the things that came creeping
in the early hours of dawn
when the town was asleep
and the moon was forlorn.
How he tossed in his sleep –
Was it sleep? was it real?
There were Things he did see
there were Things he did feel.

Lovecraft, Lovecraft –
my quiet recluse –
why are you so pale?
Pray tell. What phantom-horror
did you see in the night?
Why are you so blue?
Why do you shake? Are you
ill, are you sad, are you
broken in the mind?

But all of the doctors,
the scientists, the friends,
THEY COULD NOT REALISE
the horror, the nightmares,
the Things in the dark.

Escape through your head
through the blood-and-ink stained alleyways
within. Retire to your room
with a pen and an electric light.
Try as you might
not all of your stories with
their horror that some find unspeakable,
others disturbing –
THEY CANNOT EXPRESS
that pure form of fear
your mind feels at the idea
of the mad Arab’s couplet.

*That is not dead which can eternal lie
And with strange aeons, even death may die.