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the worst thing you can
do is to think too much and edit
yourself before you even start,
open the tap and see what comes
out, save the judgement and evaluation
for after there is something on the page,
overthinking a poem is the best way
to abort it before it has even
been birthed, is what i tell my students
as they sit in the classroom, pens in hands
hunched over blank notebooks, wondering
where in their minds or lives they might
find meaning, you are not writing poems,
i tell them, they are always all around and within
you, like protons, neutrons and electrons,
to your nucleus, poems are discovered
and unravelled never written or constructed,
just keep pushing until one flops on the page,
extract the mucus, wipe it clean and wait to
hear it cry, once it’s settled and you’ve rocked
it to sleep and allowed it to feed, take a bite of
the placenta for strength, you might be covered
with blood and fluid, but look what you hath wrought
into the world, just by sitting there and letting
the universe flow through you.