When sorrow is pummeling me,  when anger has me
by the throat, when fear and anxiety are shaking
my confidence and turning my stomach,  when
I begin to feel like a foreign object,  writing kicks
the villains out.  Drags them to a cell, throws
the bolt.   Reinforced both the door and the lock
to make it harder for them to get out.  They will,
but while they are swearing and collecting bruises,
guess who is at peace.   First words are bad to
fall flat.  What erasers and delete keys are for.
But a lot of muses like the silent approach.  Mine
does, I know.  By word eleven, she starts to
draw a picture  or spell out a theme.   Both
at once means temporary leave to be  more than
I.  An instinctual being with the power, if only
for the moment, to connect through lines
and dots that arrange themselves in familiar
patterns as they look for detours that will allow
them to put the patterns to uses that are novel,
at the same time clear.  That only seem new,
being tied to universal truths.  To say
time flies is an understatement.  At your desk
one second, rafting above the stratosphere
the next.  Poem may turn out to be a flop.  
Who cares?   Room of my own more than
enough.  Eraser-equipped pencil, indelible
pen, or a machine that squeaks by on zeroes
and ones,  all the same to me.  'Long as words
manage to chauffeur me past my demons,
or work their way around,  I can take   
being pummeled, grabbed hold of, and shaken.   
Luck holds, put them in a poem.
 
 
    (c)  Phyllis Jean Green
         All Rights Reserved