Poetry Post #3 of three.

[ninanevermore]

Last of all, I am posting the kind of poem I am loath to admit that I write. It's a poem about writing poems. I don't think they are a good idea. But this one is kind of fun, to me at least. It's tongue in cheek. It's a poem about how the creative process doesn't work if I am distracted or everything around me is not conductive to it.



Shortbread For The Muse

She won't let words flow
from the wrong sort of pen,
or if I offer her the wrong drink,
and if I settle in an uncomfortable chair,
she won't hand me a thing.

She denies me the hunger I need
if I try to give her the wrong foods,
she takes offense and stays away
if I offer her morsels not fit for a muse-
for example, no food that's healthy and green -
but will grant me a world of inspiration and grace
if I disregard all of know of good nutrition
and give her shortbread cookies to taste.

She likes coffee of any kind,
but I've noticed she's picky about her wines;
I like whites, while she prefers reds,
but we agree about Cuba Libras, cheesecake
and sourdough bread.

She tells me to draw in the margins
when I ask her for give me poetry,
or she hands me words that come out as prose,
because she's the nastiest kind of tease.

Yet I constantly beseech her
to give coherence to my babble,
to make sense of the rabble in my head,
I tempt her with sweet red wine or coffee
and if she resists, then a little shortbread.



-Nina Erickson
November 2006
© 2006