It’s Poetry Wednesday - the Pressure of Words

2 for 1 day.

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

It’s Wednesday again, so it’s poetry day. Last week whilst chatting in the

Poetry Pals

group we discussed when the words won’t come and feeling pressured to write poetry. And these words pressured me to write them.

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Poems Don’t Like Pressure

Poems don’t like pressure,  
they wriggle and squirm across the page
refusing to stay put, to be organised,
words jumping, letters jiggling.
Constantly. 
They have no wish for permanency 
suggesting other words that would be better,
no wish to be used today and throw
the thesaurus my way. 
That heavy tome being little use this time
for no word is right, 
they refuse the form, the rhyme, the meter, 
the meaning. 
But come the witching hour
when I’m trying to sleep
having given up hope of ever writing again,
they are organised, finding the perfect form,
the perfect words, the perfect rhythm, 
and will worm their way
insidiously into my brain
insisting they speak
‘Now is the time, now is the time.’ 
and between us we weave a marvel,
such a glorious combination of us all. 
And I fall asleep happy
but wake having forgotten it all. 
 				                         Feb 2024

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And then whilst scrolling through my old poems, as I am wont to do when bored as I can’t remember them all,I found another on the very same subject a written good few years ago. It appears the muses have forsaken me before.

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Shards

Half poems written in the night as insomnia strikes.
Forgotten by day break when pen and pad are in reach.
Twisting words in writhing rhythm float in my brain.
On the edge of sleep I compose greatness to be lost at dawn.
Words never recovered.
Verses are lost leaving only shadow forms behind.
A splintered word, a shredded idea, a stunted verse, a soft image.
No cohesion, no clarity, no clearness, no continuity.
Just shards.
Lost word children in the land of dreams.
						                          June 2017

So there we have it, two quite different poems really. Is one better than the other? Maybe? Or is it refinding a poem and loving the words. One was written very quickly and is lighter hearted. One slightly less flippant.

So, as always, if you like theses please give me a like and/or share