No Poems Today I, II, III

No Poems Today I

I have no poem in me today

I’m aware it’s either ironic or lying that I’m writing
But sometimes the soul just needs to say, "I’ve got nothing,"
And learn that it’s okay

The sun will come up again tomorrow
And lean into us with rays, like words, that warm
To help us realize, it’s never much about us, anyway
Just the dance of light jumping between every living being
And, come to it, every rock and dust and slumbered thing
Which still write a few words, in their quiet, and throws them, like paper into flames,
Into the dance of fire
Where what’s burned, crossing through, is refined, reproved, renewed
And stands there, across the river, a fully formed Phoenix
In the world to come

No Poems Today II

I guess the fear is we know someday, it won’t
The sun, I mean—come up and all that

But for now, my friend has left town, and my birthday's gone,
And I spent so much energy running around, my soul has pooped out and said, “enough”
Like a jalopy on route 66
We are like circles which, running into happiness, running into sorrow, grow tired and
have to sit once again before the great silence

But then, "Don’t try to wring from me any words," my soul said,
Your brain will judge them all as trite, if you try
And you know the drill:  
You’ll think what you find is never true, that your young energy just deceives you

I don’t have a poem in me, though they remain all around,
I must simply sit and say, "the waves come in, the waves come out
Let’s hope a new tide rolls about"
(See, that rhymed
...I tried)

No Poems Today III

A good substitute for truth is rhythm and a line in time and two words
That stare at each other, from across a line
But this moment won’t yield to cheap tricks

After all, I had a moment which now I can’t remember
Can’t recall with rhymes, like a magician calling a hidden card forth,
But it was poetry

If I can just find and pull the string of it, like a line of hankies from my sleeve,
I could write a poem
But all I can remember is, it was something about how you laughed and smiled
And shook your head while you read your book, a world being born inside your brain,
And me standing in the doorway, an unseen shadow, shaking my head and smiling in my turn
A world turning, like a kaleidoscope, inside me