When the page stays empty
Despite the mind being full,
Don’t push the mind too hard,
But use the page to pull.

Removing all structure,
Form and meter and theme,
Prepare the page for flood
And make your pen a stream.
Every errant feeling,
Every truant thought,
Write them down; don’t worry
If sense they make or not.

At first, you may be stiff:
Mind at odds with body.
Your words will feel leaden
Your lines will feel shoddy.
You’ll get your spellings wrong,
Forget your grammar rules.
Ideas will eddy,
And whirl down into pools.

Or your hand will struggle
To match the speed of mind
You’ll keep finding much that
You have to leave behind.
Yet, all you carry out
Just seems to be more muck,
Choking all the flow points,
That could get you unstuck.

A page in, you will feel
How pointless all this is,
And curse your muse for not
Showing that face of his.
You will want to give up,
And guise it as a ‘break’,
Although it is one that
You have been forced to take.

This moment is the key.
Your action here will say
If you can break through now
Or be stuck for the day.

So, don’t let your pen stop.
It must keep flowing on.
Till all the muck is pulled
And all the chokes are gone.
Beyond all the purging,
Beyond all the scours,
You will, after minutes
Or maybe after hours,
Feel your focus sharpen,
Awareness clarify.
Cloudy doubts will fade and
Reveal a quiet sky.

Your structure will come back
Before you realise,
Consciousness will boil,
Ideas crystallize.
Pick these gems by theme,
Cut edges with your form,
Set them in a meter,
On strings of feelings warm.
You have a poem now
Where there were none at all.
So, do this every time
Your muse ignores your call.