The Poet Game

Where do poems come from? I wish I knew. And I do know, in some sense because I can feel the place they arise from but I cannot manifest it with words, which in and of itself is ironic.

I can try to explain it as the place of contemplation. The place where you work yourself out. Where the poet mind meets the earth. Where the poet mind meets philosophy. Where the poets make their own philosophies.

I find myself writing poems after small moments that feel important. Minute tragedies of living within small moments of beauty. Moments where the lesson learned was in front of me all along.

Poems can come from a plane's wheels leaving the ground. From wishes and nightmares. More likely they arise from the space between the two.

Sometimes, I can feel a poem coming on. This has happened to me since I was young. The need to put words to paper. To let the metaphor of living poor out.

I sometimes forget the poet side living in me and when I don’t have one of those moments for months, like recently, I fear it could be gone forever. The flux of life gives us the small tragedies. The large ones. The whispers of perfection. The continued fall of mankind. As poets, our job, duty, liveliness is to grasp these pieces, make them whole, if even for a moment; to try and make sense of what is real.