ALL NIGHT JOURNEY
Sometimes between dusk and dawn
(if I’m lucky) I can blot duty
out of mind and write poetry;
but orchestration of a throbbing
tune strangled until night is like
telling a trampled rose to re-bloom.
Suffocated memory marches slowly
into now-- the naked inner melody
groping blindly through mental
gauze, and always competing
against a party, or turned up TV.
But, finally, quiet conquers, and
(luck with me) as dawn downs
the night, the genesis re-emerges,
riding a ray of pale light into poetry.