A Poem on How to Write a Poem

Asta Dido

You get a word or an idea

You let it mulch

Until others come to join it

Some of mine have been mulching

many years and years

a scribbled note and sentence strung hanging alone

from the place my many notions come from

The source is buried at least three levels and more

below consciousness

And I wait patiently for them to percolate

To the fore in the shape an alabaster certainty

Like in the hands of a sculptor

who patiently lets the form develop

Or from the vintner

for after all poems are distillates

and pour from the soul

There are thoughts and dreams behind them

Along with wishes, feelings, desires

and needs waiting to be fulfilled

hunger sated

and primordial beasts

beaten and banished

Oh, and more words of course

And all is done to find the meaning of life

and other silly and impossible questions

They best come in sleep and in the morning

when the mind awakes before the body

Sometime trickling and at times gushing

Before your real world mind awakes

And forces you to take the day as it is

To face life as it is

Or, Is it?

Having a “peak experience” will tell you

Become your own favorite poet

Be as good as all the famous poets and writers

before or along side you

in your mind, if not others

Become the creator, not the critic

For that is where the real fun be

The only difficult and sad part being

When and how to end your feasting

Poems, you see, never have and never will have endings…