I chase a flicker in the dark -
a word-moth brushing my thoughts,
refusing capture
but leaving dust like evidence
in the air.
The poem begins expensive -
not in coins,
but in nerve.
A blank page waits
like a market stall at dawn:
crates sweating dew,
wood smelling of fish and citrus,
quiet with possible trades.
I bargain with myself,
turning out my pockets,
paying in doubt,
in hours shaved from sleep,
in the bruised pulp
of almost-said things.
Then the wrestling starts.
Metaphors twist like eels,
slick, unwilling to be handled.
Similes arrive overdressed,
charging extra for like and as.
Forms gather -
each insisting its shape
is the only honest currency.
Some days the fees spike.
Fear hides in the fine print.
Interest compounds on abandoned drafts.
A ballad asks for a chorus
I can’t cover.
A haiku lifts three lines
before I notice the loss.
I leave scraps behind -
receipts I don’t want to examine.
Then something shifts.
The market goes quiet.
Silence raises its price -
and inspiration undercuts it.
A spark drops.
The air tastes like struck matches.
Suddenly everything is discounted:
words spilling like coins
from a torn purse.
I gather what I can.
Press metaphors back into shape.
Argue with rhyme until it gives.
Tune cadence like a street musician,
throwing a few lines into the air
just to hear where they land.
By night the page isn’t empty.
It’s a ledger crossed out and rewritten,
never quite adding up.
Poems don’t balance -
they account.
I’m richer and poorer for it,
spent and carrying more than I started with,
the pale dust of that first moth
still clinging to my hands.
Tomorrow I’ll open the stall again,
count what I have left,
and see what light
will cost.
GBS jr
2016
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