How I Write A Poem

I begin with finding something so attractive

(not by definition beautiful or lovely
but something that compels me to look
without filter or judgment)

I at once believe I am in the presence
of a being or visitation or revelation
from a dimension
we all think exists but until now
have been unable to verify,
and here before me is the proof.

I study it, fall before it,
reach out in vain to touch it
before light or wind or time change it
(or my view of it more likely,
as something this potent
must be infinite, immortal,
immutable) and I am unable
to spend any more of myself
upon it.

I carry it in my head
and rush to find
some place to write,
then damage it
beyond repair while telling
of its perfection.

I try to rebuild it.
I slap words around, cut myself
to improve my ink, lose sleep
over paste and staples and stitches,
and generally make a huge mess
of the story of how
all my time
made sense at last
in the viewing of this
that suspended my cynical breath
and stopped my constant flight away
from hope,

then eventually abandon it to the eyes
and ears of others, hoping
that some day some stranger
may approach me and say,
“Yes!” and that the pulp of time
will stop pulsing again, and that
I may know again
that what I said I saw that day
was indeed what was there.