In a Poem's Wake

I’m hot on the tail of a poem’s trail

To discover what makes it tick,

For the ones I receive in the daily mail

Are always giving me stick.

I don’t want the ones with a psycho-probe

That go ravelling into my brain,

Or a moody muse with a too short fuse

They only generate pain.

 

When I spot one bearing a carefree lilt,

A rhythm that echoes my heart,

Or a rhyme scheme pairing a seem with dream,

We’re off to a flying start.

It gallops ahead of me, feeling its way

Through words that it finds by chance,

And makes it plain that it wants to play

In the meadows of assonance.

 

So I chase it over a babbling brook

On a cliché, rhyme or hook,

And still the breeze that will rhyme with trees

Turns the pages of my book.

I search for characters, sweet young girls

And for ladies, fair of face,

Who dance along with the poem, twirl

In the aftermath of grace.

 

While men, the heroes of quests and seas

Marooned on a distant shore,

Will take the poem to where they please,

You’ve never been there before.

And they meet the girls with the hair like corn,

Are trapped in their sparkling eyes,

They come together in winter storm

And all that you hear are sighs.

 

For the poem gives, and the poem takes

It will lull you, thrill you, dance,

From its wedding bells to its funeral wakes

It will still you, fill, entrance!

Its magic lies in its rhyme and scheme

As it weaves a recurring spell,

It nestles into your heart and dreams

Like an Olde Tyme Wishing Well.

 

And when it finally comes to stand

On the shore of a timeless lake,

As the book slips out of your listless hand

It whispers, ‘Are you awake?’

Then I spring to life and I seize it then,

And give to its tail a twist,

‘I’m still the poet, I hold the pen,’

I write, in the evening mist!

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[ANTO]

Well that was quite the jaunt - they can be elusive those poems and muses but you got that one good - no escape from the clutches of DLP.
Actually gave me a wee jolt too when you pretended to be asleep.
What about the ones that got away - bet they were this (....O....) big

[Vishuddha]

This has to be one of my favorites.

I like your style, you make me smile,
Your poems are quite a trick.
I enjoy the rhyme, but, most of the time,
They are over way too quick.

[TPK Stories]

another great story DLP...

[Avinash]

Nice to learn your preferences David. In fact all of us have a taste but you seem to know what you quite like. I personally like the stories being told and the way hidden meanings unfold very much like life.

[Marie]

That's what a poet does, and that's what a poem is, or should be. You make it sound likke fun, although I know other writers agonize over their work, unable to make their flimsy dreams into something solid.

[Thomas Fitzgerald]

...and for this poem we pin and zip,
let time degrade and finally flip!

well done, great piece!

[R Smith]

nice insight into the master at work, well said David :)

[Valentine]

Writers can find words to use in their writing all around them. All have dry spells, but then, we hear a line, or hear a story that interests us and off we go again, pen in hand. The years I had seizures, I would get up days after a bad event and find something that I had written. Where the words and thoughts came from...God only knows. I just thank God for each writer on the site that lets us read their work. You know how I feel Mate. Kathie

[roarke]

great perspective, great advise.

[MomzillaNC]

Brilliant! This one has the reader mentally dancing through every line.