How Does One Write The Things One Writes? Poem by Denis Martindale

How does one write the things one writes
From tales to poetry,
When spending hours, days and nights,
In wonder what will be?
Could it be fate that God has set
One's awesome destiny?
For with great power poets get
Responsibility!

How does one get the poems penned,
Beyond one's part-time schemes,
To separate from every friend,
Expressing private dreams?
To cancel out the public's hold,
To sit upon one's own,
To gather thoughts as good as gold,
Not for oneself alone...

How does one edit words that come
That dance upon the page,
Then choosing these, rejecting some,
For well beyond this age?
To congregate the gifts allowed,
To form what must be made,
Or does one pray with head then bowed,
So God come to one's aid?

I only know from years gone by,
A partnership exists,
It's there for every time I try,
So steadfast it persists...
If not for God, I couldn't love
This writing as I do...
That's why I pray to God above
And so, dear friends, should you...


Denis Martindale, February 2016.