Poems are like puzzles:
A painstakingly placed picture,
Plucked from the peripheries,
Of percipient perspective.

Penetrating the personal,
The pen puts pain to pass,
Pouring perceptions in to paper,
In the process perfecting the practice.

Some poems pray for peace,
Some paint a piece of people's lives,
Photographically rendering the ineffable,
Imparting philosophies.

The poet is a piper piping pleasantries;
Poems pretty as phosphorous,
In a pyrotechnic parade,
Putting fire in our pupils.

Perhaps the "P" is hard to parse,
And I perceive this problem.
Perhaps my pursuit of the perfect poem,
Must not be prolonged or proceed.

But I'm a phonetic philanderer,
Pushing on like a prodigious pioneer,
Playing for pleasure with puns,
Posing metaphors, putting words in place,
Searching for planetary purpose,
Peering past the past and present,
In to possibilities of peace and plenitude.

But perhaps now the peak has passed and
The pliant "P" is pushed to its limits,
The words are all plucked, parched
And the poem is plenary.