Sometimes a poem will grab you
by the arm and tug you into a dingy doorway,
or whisper in your ear about the strangest things,
or, smiling, sink gleaming fangs into your throat.
And while you’re walking in a barren landscape,
sometimes a poem will idle up next to you,
match your step and begin
talking softly or humming.
Sometimes a poem lies
incomplete and unfulfilled
in poetic purgatory.
Waiting for the coup de grace.
Sometimes a poem cannot be satisfied
until it sucks the marrow from your bones,
and leaves you gasping with
your thesaurus unzipped.
©Joel Fallon, date unknown
All rights reserved
Peter Bray says
Thanks for including Joel’s poem! He hops about us still as a sparrow or owl or Peregrine Falcon in the beams of the Dona Benicia room at the Library maintaining poetry’s culture in Benicia.
pb