My Arsenal of Poetica

i
Cut to the chase
précis the prose
polish the words
notes in a song
thread them along
bracelet for tongue

ii
But where to begin?
In a desert, distilling dry air
some drips of condensation
some half-sensed sense
a semblance of sentence
a stuttering of lines that slip
in, down and past the part
where rhymes like uncaged lions
pace, as pendulum, as meter
between syllable and silence

iii
Into mixed company, comes my poetry
often you I mourn, and with a chalice
of sweet bitterness, him as Merlin.
Death prowls by inference, deals the knave
of hearts, damns the course of romance
and dammed it is too with millponds
where I've drowned so many foolish drafts.
But epic's just eponymous, trivia is trumps
and this sphere's so full of beautiful blown roses
west wind has summoned early snows.