Tuesday 14 June 2022

Poetic Manoeuvres



 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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