It’s not that I’m resisting poetry.
I’m just replete with okayish ideas
That I don’t really want to write about.
You know how exams slacken the trip-wire
With relatively easy multiple-choicers
Where the last option is a revelation:
That popular “None of the Above”?
It’s such a timely lifebuoy, right?
That it’s reasonable to tick that option,
To float along to the next question,
Without any real clue about how to
Snorkel down to the right answer?
Well, you can’t respectably do that
In a poem, you know. You can’t, right?
I wonder how with all these years
Of cat-landing my way through exams
And urgent-important work meetings,
I haven’t yet found a workaround for poems.
I should be able to reliably get away, say,
By airdropping a metaphor every fourth line
That readers recognise when I nudge them to,
Making them retrace the poem to count lines.
I should be able to write a recreational poem
Where I remix a reusable prefix repeatedly.
It shouldn’t be too reprehensible to suggest
That once in a while, when the rest of the day
Requires full attention to my responsibilities,
Resuscitating Creativity with a Snow White kiss
Should take priority over reverberating poetry
That resonates with the reader’s sensibilities.
I’m not recusing myself of my writerly duties.
I’m just respiring between the lines today.