You write because
you decide to write
when a sudden jagged
uninvited light
bites the eye of your mind.
You write because
you don’t not write
the way you used to
not write.
*
Rachel McAlpine
writing
Listen to reason
Listen to reason.
This won’t take long.
You’re reading.
I’m writing.
That makes us
born lucky
dead lucky.
*
Rachel McAlpine
Thought and long
A tall thought
a built thought
is a dissertation.
A short thought
a wrought thought
is a minuet.
*
Rachel McAlpine
Writing a book
I am writing a book.
It will take some time.
The book has a title: Flatlantis
and another: Tropical Ice.
The poems will grow like pack-ice.
They will flow like sweat.
They will be easy to read.
They will be hard to write.
When the book is published
I will be a grown-up.
How will that feel?
Curious.
*
Rachel McAlpine
Somewhere a poet
Somewhere a poet
is cleaning a bathroom.
Somewhere a cleaner
is writing a poem.
That new thing
That new thing
(the one that worries you)
may not
be a bad thing.
May not
be a new thing.
*
Rachel McAlpine
Poems in the wild—Rachel McAlpine 