How to Write Good Poems

The Chinese Wallet

My friend tells me how she knows

when her poems are  good:

“I have a silk Chinese wallet decorated

cranes and pink blossoms, and a flap ” she says.

  Her hands turn over the flap in the air.

“I write my my poems on yellow legal pad, double spaced.

When I am done I fold them in half and in half again”

Her hands float one over the other indicating the poem’s

dive into their silk resting place.

“I let them sit there until I think it’s

time to look at them again. Then

I take them out to see if they are

still as good as

I remember them”

      Her hands  soar down then up

retrieving the sleeping pages

from their nesting place.

“Then I take them out and reread

them to see if they still make sense,”

she goes on to explain.

“If they still make sense,

after all that

they are good poems.”

Her hands fall open

palms up.

Now I understand!

 Embroidered birds and

incantations transform words

as they sleep.

This I must believe

to become

a poet.

for Kit by Carol Carlisle

Poet’s Pub suggest writing a poem about poetry and I have had this one hidden away for quit a while, now seemed a good time retrieve it from it’s nesting place.