Roughly Made (Poetry)

Tonight the words are thin and looking tired
as I am ... few and far they strain to keep
their haze of meanings halfway straight and neat

I tease and coax their lines — encourage them
to work with me ... perhaps co-operate
despite the nodding head agrees it’s rather late

Thus the pen leans languid — more inclined to dream
than spend its ink on too ambitious schemes
when midnight’s knocking and the eyelids droop

I manage three lines ... limp to almost four
words st u tt er ... stop ... my pad slides to the floor
the Muse she mutters on ... her voice ignored

I dream-write loosely using meter and part-rhyme
by morning there’s a poem roughly made
before the sun’s sharp critic tests its blade