On Breathing -

A friend
the other day asked
the secret
to words, the secret
to writing: wanted
to try his hand
at "throwing down
a verse or two."

Not
the friend I have grown
accustomed
to speaking of such
with - this one older -
younger.

Who am I
to know
such things -
how to tell
another
the way
to breathe?

One
method takes a single
thought transcribed. Flesh
those words, that thought
one
painful
line
at a time - or not. Still
a single thought
the starting plot.

Another school
says
to
write
one
word
at
a
time - each
blending to sentence; sentence
to sentence to cause verse
to form; each character, each
syllable, word and sentence
and verse labored to perfect
form and punctuation.
Poetry.

And then technique;
sometimes thought, sometimes
not - others both thought
and not; write your thinking
and on completing
call it done.

Yet another school
of language - evolved
from those few acknowledged
here and more, taught
to this scribbler of words
by the greatest pen
he may never know -
to blind your mind,
open yourself to the dragon
in your soul and etch
the words as they flow,
not sentence, not verse, just
words to record raw emotion.
The beast of madness
rubbing
its scaly flesh against
the core of your Self.

Cease to be -
become a conduit
between unconscious
consciousness
and paper. Embrace
the beast and dance
in the flames of his truth
while staring
in his mirror - then,
then my friend
you might know one
secret of "throwing
down a verse
or two."

Then -
you will
write.

_{(CR :: 05-13-2010)}