Actual question from a test designed to assess creativity:  “Just suppose we had the power to transport ourselves anywhere in the world in the blink of an eye.  What would some benefits, problems, etc. of this power be?  You have three minutes to answer.”

first,

I would move
six inches away from here
and rewrite all my poems
as if I had always been
six inches away from here.

next,

I would move back to where I had been
and rewrite them again.
but they’d be so unlike
the originals
that it would be like starting over.

they’d likely all become haiku
and again I’d move
six inches away
to see how they looked after all that.

I’d think I’d end up
just moving swiftly
around the house.  desk to bed
to kitchen to shitter
to shower to desk to bed.
in every spare minute
I’d  be rewriting poems.

I think I’d end up crying a lot,
flashing to the bathroom for tissue
to weep into, then back to the desk.

I might burn the damn poems
then go buy some expensive paper in venice
and write them all again
even shorter.
one word
per pricey page.

six inches away from the desk.
back at the desk.
six inches away from the desk.
back at the desk.

not really sure how different it would be.

________________

note:  poem originally posted in July of 2010.  heavily revised here.