Drowning in Poetry

Sitting up at midnight,
Pen in hand,
Eyes dry and exhaustingly alert,
I wait

For words to come,

Phrases to tip off the end off my biro, like pebbles tumbling down a sheer drop,
Slipping like diver birds into seas of scribbled notes, illegible scraps,
Waves crashing, climbing, lapping thirstily up against the white cliff edges, the confines Of my skull.

Out of your depth, a poem will drag you down.

And then perhaps you’ll drown
From the lines, verses, pages,
That flood your soul, that spill over from soul to mind to body to book.
Currents swirl moodily from the images that simmer hungrily behind your brain,
Like built up heat,
Like untouched lust,
A raging ocean
That must get out
And scream and shout a song upon a page,
To curb this vicious rage and icy sadness,
And let it pour out,
The sweet and the sour,
Until my heart steadies,
And the thoughts stop spinning around my head,
Like a flock of starlings that don’t know which way is south.