The poet examines her work
leafs through the crumpled papers
watching handwriting change
from entry to entry
sometimes within poems
as if emotion dictates scrawl-
lighthanded, looping, or harsh and flat

She stops on a few
drawn in by memory
or lines like dreams
where she imagined sleepless nights
or the end of a life
anything her mind could imagine
fleshed out with the fluidity of a stream

The words had always been in
her brain. It is impossible to know
if they would have disappeared
with nowhere to go
if she hadn’t guided her pen to paper
everyday, writing about whatever
or whomever. Like the sketch artist

she has gotten better everyday
the words appearing quicker and quicker.
This might be due to English class
it’s hard to say
regardless she has grown-
like a tree budding in Spring
learning everything has a purpose


The poet is not just a poet
she catches snippets from novels-
the dialogue or introduction or
internal stream of consciousness
clanking around her brain
She once wrote a fairytale
about a boy who spoke to trees

All of them are precious-
they are pieces of her soul
spread out on lined paper
calling out for a life that imagines,
wonders, feels free,
does not stand still-
floats on the breeze like the eagle

She has learned a thing or two
from Sylvia Plath:
the good stuff
the quality of dissonant language
the stanza-length-decision
Before she would write whatever
sounded nice- she might still

The poet, satisfied, closes the journal
imagining that one day
her poems would reach into the
minds of the world- gently
drawing out dreams-
inspiring words like she has been inspired
And she closes her eyes with an exhale

Some of us write to feel the pain,
Some to let it go.
Some write just because it rhymes,
Others just don’t know.
Nature and its beauty,
A graveyard with its ghost.
A dream of futures happy,
Passion is in most.
A poem that's so delicate
Words straight from a heart.
Only from a dreamer's soul,
Their words a work of art.
A poem is a gateway,
That leads into the mind,
A passage that is hard to reach,
And double hard to find.
But you can find it if you look
Into some troubled eyes,
You never know what each word means,
My lines are held-in cries.
But others could be just to say
"Hello", "Have a great day"
It just depends who’s writing,
And who might come their way.

It's hard to write a poem
When there's nothing going on
It's hard to think of what to say
When you've given most of it away

As poets we never scratch the surface
We delve within, disclose our deepest sin
We crave our pain, declare it's for our art
Yet more often than not have no idea where to start

But start we do and start we must
A deep desire in all of us
To spill out on the written page
What little bit we have tried to save

Ink now is the poets blood
Fragments of self pour from within
Silence is our safety net
To stop us from bleeding out

Although it's hard to write a poem
With nothing going on
We still find words to form a verse
From deep within our marrow bone

Work © Mike Hauser & © Sia Jane