Poetry can't be enjoyed like lighting a cigarette,
even rolling a cigarette.
Poetry can't be enjoyed like sex, or like
a car moving fast , or it doesn't give relief or satisfaction like
walking away.
The process of poetry is an arduous working
at the stout of a blank and bankrupt page.
Like mowing through a three-month grass patch,
or wading slowly through knee deep water...
Of course it isn't all uphill - sometimes poetry
is the Somme or sometimes it's soft like laying in
bed or sticking a spoon into a bowl of custard -
though it's never quiet as sweet.


© Orin Patterson