WHY MAKE POEMS? NOT

to record a pretty
landscape, Nature has
done that already. Nor
to play back memories,
assuming someone else
will want to read.

I wrote poems when
some unknown being
inside me reached up
through my chest 
and grabbed a pen
out of my pocket,
shouting in
its only voice, 
the voice of ink on pages, 
"Wake, sleepwalkers! Do not miss
this Beauty." And, in case
they did, describing it.

That one as likely
grabbed my pen
while I was driving,
or waiting at red lights,
as anywhere. 

GOD Speaks, I'm sure 
you know, in parts of us 
we don't yet recognize as us.

Nowadays, when I
pick up a pen,
it's like an invitation
to a wild spirit
anywhere within
as yet unharnessed
by my consciousness:

I write a line or two,
culled from my thoughts, 
and I await that tug
that's like a fish 
who's taking bait,

and in the interval,
I wait, and think,
"This can't be all of me…"