I have several poems started
But none of them want to come to completion
They all keep dodging my pen

It is so easy
to fall apart within your hands
and there
I leave my soul unfolded
                            uncontrolled
to its side, I place the weight
of dreams imposed
                    upon the heart
hoping you can shape them
make sense of them

I leave half
             of all the restlessness
that makes me brave enough
             to hold you close
                                      and then let go

North Carolina poet, Jim Wayne Miller, on his goal in writing poetry. "Growing up in North Carolina, I was often amused, along with other natives, at tourists who fished the trout streams. The pools, so perfectly clear, had a deceptive depth. Fishermen unacquainted with them were forever stepping into what they thought was knee-deep water and going in up to their waists or even their armpits, sometimes being floated right off their feet. I try to make poems like those pools, so simple and clear their depth is deceiving. I want the writing to be so transparent that the reader forgets he is reading and is aware only that he is having an experience. He is suddenly plunged deeper than he expected and comes up shivering."

It is always nice to know that you're not alone
but








It is also awful to know that they feel what you feel.