Good Morning Poetry
Imagine one morning you wake up
and you
are a poem.
Your feet are wordy, unsteady as they hit the floor.
They have not quite reached the concrete end
of all you are trying to say.
You slowly unfold. Your arms stretch passionately
as you head for the bathroom.
reach, reach for the ends of the earth,
toothpaste, facecloth, the handle of the shower.
Your heart beats irregularly,
as any poem in formation does,
excited by the moments ahead.
Your mouth is already full of words.
Your eyes gather impressions.
Your ears are broken syllables at this time of day.
Your breath tries out sounds with every exhalation.
With every inhalation,
as the shower pulses over your body
you feel how you want to be a good poem,
the best poem anyone ever wrote,
a poem people are attracted to,
one they’ll keep on their shelves forever.
As you dry yourself off you know
you’ll pattern yourself after only the best,
Shakespeare, Barbara Mitchell, Billy Collins,
Dante, Ev Heffernan, Isaiah, Pablo Neruda,
Nathan Harms, Fenna Schaapman, Rumi.
You savour the aromatic morning coffee.
Bacon, eggs are frying, nourishing ingredients.
You pull your jeans over the poem you’re becoming
and head off to work,
verse in every line on your forehead,
flowing off your hair in the breeze as you walk
rhythmically down the street, pondering
what kind of poem you’ll be
to the world by this afternoon,
positive you’re becoming the best collection of words
every cell of your body could possibly be.
Imagine one morning you wake up
and you
are a poem.
Your feet are wordy, unsteady as they hit the floor.
They have not quite reached the concrete end
of all you are trying to say.
You slowly unfold. Your arms stretch passionately
as you head for the bathroom.
reach, reach for the ends of the earth,
toothpaste, facecloth, the handle of the shower.
Your heart beats irregularly,
as any poem in formation does,
excited by the moments ahead.
Your mouth is already full of words.
Your eyes gather impressions.
Your ears are broken syllables at this time of day.
Your breath tries out sounds with every exhalation.
With every inhalation,
as the shower pulses over your body
you feel how you want to be a good poem,
the best poem anyone ever wrote,
a poem people are attracted to,
one they’ll keep on their shelves forever.
As you dry yourself off you know
you’ll pattern yourself after only the best,
Shakespeare, Barbara Mitchell, Billy Collins,
Dante, Ev Heffernan, Isaiah, Pablo Neruda,
Nathan Harms, Fenna Schaapman, Rumi.
You savour the aromatic morning coffee.
Bacon, eggs are frying, nourishing ingredients.
You pull your jeans over the poem you’re becoming
and head off to work,
verse in every line on your forehead,
flowing off your hair in the breeze as you walk
rhythmically down the street, pondering
what kind of poem you’ll be
to the world by this afternoon,
positive you’re becoming the best collection of words
every cell of your body could possibly be.