We sleep
So our darkest thoughts
Can be passed off
As nightmares

She checks her wristwatch
Counterclockwise
Against her former expectations
Of the metal
Around her wrist
She checks her digital clock
The one on the stove
That flashes
Flash, flash, flash, flash
Like a silent metronome
When the power goes out
And comes back on
12:31
12:30
12:29
Calm
She is still calm
Breathing
Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale
Steady
Like the bobbing of a buoy, bouncing
Brazenly in open sea
You see
She sees
That time can be trickery
That conceptual thoughts
Provoke mystery
Illusions and delusions
Conclusions and intrusions
Seclusion
She has many things
About which
To think

I will not bow down
To defeat.
I storm ahead and
Won't retreat.
I am the captain
Of this fleet.

The storms may rage
Beneath my feet,
But in this race
I will compete.
I will not bow down
To defeat.

My thoughts are crabbed and sallow,
My tears like vinegar,
Or the bitter blinking yellow
Of an acetic star.

Tonight the caustic wind, love,
Gossips late and soon,
And I wear the wry-faced pucker of
The sour lemon moon.

While like an early summer plum,
Puny, green, and ****,
Droops upon its wizened stem
My lean, unripened heart.

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

The memory of your kiss
In my dreams
Rips through me
Like greek fire
That not even
The pain of waking alone
Can douse

A poem, for some, is not fuelled by a single thought.
It is not a sudden emotion that yearns to be converted instantly to wordful waste, it is gradual.
It is a volcano, that builds up until eruption is inevitable.
Poetry, for some, is layer upon layer of thought and feeling and concept, hardened over time,
For some, it is hours of pain and joy and the works of the indescribable puppeteer so desperately fused
into metaphor.
Poetry, for some, lifelong.

But for others, poetry is pure spontaneity. It is unpredictable and unlook-back-able.
For others, poetry is their act of carpe diem, their tip-toe into daily bravery and recklessness.
Their mark that is not a scar.
Poetry, for others, is a single moment picked out of an infinity of them and pulled apart, or pulled together.
It is wonderful and hideous, it is skydiving and socialising and swimming with the sharks.
It is instant, it is adrenaline.
For others, poetry is lack of thought or understanding, just the swift transition from neuron to ink or binary.
Poetry, for others, is short lived.