Postmortem Of A Poem Poem by Matthew Holloway

The notebook sits open
Turned to the page of the latest poem
Hastily scribbled in shorthand
Asterisks and brackets make note
Of pace and emotion for future reference
Now in typing out this piece
Changes made to near every line
Reduce the original to nothing
But an ink stained page filled
With illegible hieroglyphic symbols
Claimed as words and verse
That I can just about translate
And reform into an alleged poem
I stare at the page intently
Trying to work out the reason
For why that line was writ
The thought behind and the time
I spent in writing
Second guessing my memory
And then it appears slowly
A poem from the pages
Far different from the original
If not better at least legible