I’ve made a practice
which feels more like a demand,
that each day I take a few
moments or more and stop
whatever else I was, or
should have been, doing
to write a poem.

There are days, perhaps this
one where it seems more
a short bit of prose to which
I have added line breaks
despite the protest
of the words, condemning them
to bear the mockery, and
others when I take a poem,
ignore its inherent rhythm
and pass it off as prose,
that insult remembered,
the words plotting revenge
but lying low, waiting
for the perfect moment
to destroy a poem I know
is worthy of publication.