If you're writing a poem
that 's going nowhere,
bin it
and go make a cup of tea.
So says Billy Collins,
and he's a poet laureate.
Billy calls them guests
to be uninvited to the party.
But standing in the kitchen doing just that,
and on the look out
for the winged muse or even baby mouse,
in this case trying to scale the garden wall,
it would be good if you didn't have to step
over the dog to find a pen and paper,
if your empathy for your target
didn't get the better of you
sending you out with trowel and brush
to airlift the mouse to safety,
looking over your shoulder all the while
for danger in the shape of your one-eyed Tom,
if all this effort didn't demand
more tea and perhaps even toast,
if literary poems these days
didn't read
like cryptic crossword clues-
the type you never could decipher,
and if you could solve the last clue
in yesterday's Simplex-
deceptive manoeuvres,
second letter e, fourth letter n,
given that you've been engaging
in exactly those to snatch a poem.
Copyright 2022 Cathy Leonard All rights reserved
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