Dress Up In You

It's a curious thing, really.

Every time I begin something new,

It hearkens heavily to the past things I've done.

And every new attempt is marked by the sea.

It's in everything I do.

If I could paint, I'd paint it,

If I could embody it in song,

I would.

This weird, tidal, nautical thing,

A heavy fixture in my work.

The lighthouse I can always find

And relate to when I'm lost in some torrent.

Now I'm beginning this sort-of journey

Into a world of structured poetry

I know little about.

Meter and rhyming and sonnets

And that ebbing-flowing rhythm

That I think all the good writers

Can attempt.

It's difficult,

And I'm just trying to put lines together

With a continuity unknown to my other,

Previous works.

Erring away from blank verse.

It's so difficult.

And I like that.

This feeling of having to work very hard

To win the approval of the muses,

And to write something that doesn't sound

Bumpy and wobbly and askew.

It'll be swell, I think.

Now if only I could just spend days

On end just concentrating my energy on

This work

That I love.

Why can I not yet devote myself

To all this poetic and artistic and beautiful?

Feeling like a caged bird.

That's how it goes.

Always a caged bird.