Kevin Patrick Hodgkiss writes

Recipe for Poetry

Do words

    Fall

        Out of the imagination

As eggs drop

    From the back end

        Of a well-fed but nervous hen

Picked and placed

    Into the poet’s dozen

        Scrambled, unscrambled

Until they’re well fit?

Or

Are words

    The final product

        Squeezed and forced

With cramps and contractions

            From the bodysoul

Out of the life gutter

    Splatter

       Onto the clean white page?

Does one

    Bear down

        Or dream

To produce

    The best words

Kidney stone

    Child

        Shit

Or

    Simply

        Lace curtains

            In the breeze?

 

 The Poet -- Paul Cadmus