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2012-05-13T00:01:23-07:00May 13th, 2012|Creativity|

A poem is like a dog

A poem is like a dog
you think you are taking him to the lake
but he stops at a shrub
decides it is ravishing
and the lake is not a character
in this story
after all

so it is with the words
that climb down out of your head
you think you are going to write about your mother
on Mother’s Day
but you can’t stop thinking about how
you heard on the radio today
that the sun will boil away the ocean
in a billion years
which is a long ways off
but it still makes you irritated
for a reason you will never
get to the bottom of

and in the end
your poem takes you by the neck
and says
you threw a party today
write about that
but it’s a trick
you choke on the phrase

threw a party

the words splatter into an image
the food
the saris you used as tablecloths
your friends
all of it in a bag
that you throw onto the grass
like dice
the thrill
of what the consequences will be
of all that mixing.

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