If your wind starts rustling
through trees —
end it.  Cut the wind off.

If at any time you feel compelled to speak
of your soul, if you feel it stirring, joining, seeking
its mate — end it.  Cut the soul free. It’s damn tired
of doing those things and it will embrace you for this.

What else?  Skip dusk, skip dawn.
If you can’t get down with
two in the afternoon, or three fifty-six AM —

please, end it.  Stop.  Cut the clock free.
Nothing wants to do this same old same old
forever, except for your genitals

and even they get bored occasionally…
so, workshop it all right out.  Bash
a cliche in the head till it blooms.  Skip
eyes, crystalline, waves, skin, moist — 

give us instead conveyor belt, chatter,
soapy, saw blade, match heads,
horse tooth, chipper, mess, orchestral.

Listen: we need you.  Be you. 
Only you are standing where you are. 
What’s it look like,
sound like there? 

You can start by realizing
that none of the above
is about how to write a poem.