Shari's Telling Stories

I sit at my computer and work;
laboring looks like meditation.
I’m just sitting
staring at the screen.
Searching blank space for the thought
the word, the letter that would
speak to each successive one
indicating the keystrokes to make
like a player piano.

I follow the lead to reveal
the message I know is there,
hidden just for me to find.

My alternative execution
is pen and paper
for calling on Inspiration
to whisper in the text
I’ll soon let spill out of me.

The tactile sensation of
my hand scraping a pen across paper
unearths the verses
that will expose parts of me
I may have wanted to hide.

Thank God for editing time
because once my hands get going
no telling what they’ll put out.
As if a poem makes a thing
less poignant, less painful
and easier to share.

A poem will display me naked
and prostrate before my audience;
and I give it space to have its say.

Before I share anything though
sanity and left brain rush in
and cover me properly
in innuendo using shape, simile and metaphor.

Shari Lynne Smothers ©2009