Scribbled notes, a word, here and there,
thoughts jotted down before they’re lost,
journals filled with rhymes from thin air,
failed metaphors erased and tossed.

Crumpled paper piled in my head,
stories that should not be written,
poems penned never to be said,
a single word had me smitten.

A phrase I think might become more,
a tiny twinge might be a seed,
a style I’ve never used before,
an allusion that might succeed.

Images that need description,
seeing a fraction of a whole,
each of these an apt depiction
of chaos in a writer’s soul.

These scenes play out on eyelids’ screen,
This virtuoso performance
That no playwright could have foreseen,
Of such fantastic discordance!

Engrossed in this film with no plot,
With unknown actors in the lead,
I’d look away but I cannot,
The action is driven by my need.

Leaving the theatre of my sleep,
All of the faces still remain,
Fantasies filed away so deep
Inspire the poems in my brain.

From whence a poet’s vision comes—
Forgotten scenes that once were clear,
The rhymes are just a trail of crumbs
I use to bring the real near.

They were only words but they had meaning.
He met with them as an empty vessel.
Inside him, though, a way he’d been leaning,
Thoughts which he did not know how to wrestle.

They were only words but his bell was rung—
Sudden elusive feel of vibration!
Sounding a note like a string had been strung,
An echo resonant with elation!

They were only words but they made him sing,
Of pleasures hidden away for too long.
How much inspiration these words could bring!
He’d never heard his own heart write its song!

He’d been so dull with words, but below it—
The sensitivity of a poet!