Unless I'm crying,
I never spend more than 10 minutes on a poem.
Even then, 10 minutes is quite rare.
I wonder why I'm not a great poet
but that lies simply within my time.
I could write philosophy
and deep words that resonate
and be like the poets I admire,
but you see they all spend time on their poems.
They think it through and have something to say.
I just write,
blindly, quickly, pointlessly.
my poems are simple
and dull,
quick rantings of a messy teenager
with no conviction
or strength
or beliefs
or heart-
just quick words written in a minute
that mean absolutely nothing.

I often wonder what I could do,
should I spend time on a poem,
but I've got no conviction
no dedication
no patience
so I write poems in a minute-
I paint words and frame them
before they've begun to dry
so they drip down across the canvas
and make a mess of themselves
and get jumbled
and end up useless and ugly and dull.

But I keep doing it.