Reflecting the times

I’ve been charged to reflect my approach when I write,  
but this bogus procedure seems sterile, despite
all submissions that’s sewn in my journal each night,
I’ve no clue how I come to write words that ignite
all the passion inside. How I long to rewrite
certain lines with no meaning, my pages they blight.
Although sometimes I wonder, if they’re hid from sight
that the rest of the words will attain the green light.
 
I read books from the authors I tend to admire,
I read books from the writers that tend to inspire,
I read books from the best and I try to aspire
to the dizzying heights, with the wealthy attire
of the rich and the shameless, that’s what I desire,
not the downtrodden poet! No hope to retire
to a sandy white beach with a pit for my fire.
Just some friends and a sea breeze, that is all I require.
 
With lessons doled out by the lecturer’s few,
just to round up the sparks of ideas running through
these creative young minds as they tend to accrue,
all the tools that are needed to help them construe
how to think of their future, to hone into view
any semblance of artistic licence in lieu
of the clots written down with the tripe that we spew,
so, our words become rounded, with feeling anew.
 
I make light of the way that my words come to heel,
but then sometimes my sentences tend to congeal
into meaningless lumps, cataclysmic, surreal,
thread bare thoughts of a sentence I need to anneal
into something much tougher, akin to raw steel.
To the Greek God Apollo I send my appeal
that the heart of a poet, I’ve no need to steal,
but the temperament softens. Before him I kneel.
 
As this night gathers pace, Dionysus creeps in,
like my thoughts, Ariadne’s abandoned herein,
to expel grapes of pleasure, not wrath, nor of sin
and release knotted vines. Let the stupor begin.
But the head becomes clouded, my thoughts start to spin,
like the tail on the donkey, so blindly I pin.
But to feel the right words and present them within
sixty lines is a challenge. It’s one that I’ll win.
 
In the cold light of day, one considers those lines,
with the words forged in darkness and bolstered by wine.
To allow them to stay with some polish and shine,
or to lose them to Lethe and forget them in time.
Like the Greek God Hephaestus cast out with divine
intervention from Hera, I tend to decline
any substitute sentence. I learn to consign
all inadequate words to the back of my mind.
 
So why should I write things I see fit to share?
It’s because I can’t find texts like mine anywhere,
as all writers who teach from their books are aware,
that the art of the author is fraught with despair.
So, I strive to bring joy, write my words and add flair
though the students I sit with I dare not compare
any poems I have penned I submit no fanfare.
To be crass or succinct? It’s a choice to be fair.
 
These last lines that I write, should give you some clue,
that the reader has smiled and has ploughed his way through
all the rambling and sidesteps you’ve fallen into,
from my heart and my laptop, I’ll say my thank you.
But before I close down, and I bid you adieu
let me reiterate why I do what I do.
Yes, I like to make use of these words old and new
I enjoy playing games, and I know you do too