My Next Poem Poem by Daniel Brick

Is it waiting for me to find it
outdoors? Covered with the snow
that fell this morning, just a dusting
of powder snow, but sufficient to render
it invisible in a material world.
It has no inner light to signal its presence.
It could be trapped just below the third
step of a steep staircase. When I walk over it,
my shadow briefly touching it, it remains mute
though composed of words, silent unavailing words.

Or perhaps my next poem will never become
words on paper, because it is already resident
in her heart where she cherishes its wordless
message as it swells to fill interior space
with our mingled good wishes for the other,
both of us exerting a primal urge of such
spiritual intensity that the poem occupies
space and measures time, thus partaking
of both material and immaterial worlds.

My next poem could be lodged within a poem
by Denise Levertov: her words cleverly jumbled
and then rearranged will reveal something of
my poetic worth when carefully detached from
the body of her poem. And they will retain
the silver sheen and luminous truth of her art:
"To make / of song a chalice, / of Time, / a communion wine."

Or I can sit in this large chair, leaning
over this large desk, with scattered papers
of unfinished poems, stalled or still-born
or stubbornly resisting closure. Is my next
poem one of these unruly children of my mind?
Perhaps for my next poem I will surrender
to such misrule, join my proper speech to a chaos
of possibilities, and let the words find their
desired niches, as sound and rhythm toss them
in a riot of untrammeled creativity. This next poem
will be dedicated to the spirit of Sir John Falstaff.