Ars Poetica

After all those readings, I decided to write my own Ars Poetica. The winged thing metaphor is a bit old, but I think the old metaphors have a certain allegorical nature that new metaphors don't have. I think the last line might be a bit overbearing. I like that everyone else is asleep in this poem.


Ars Poetica

I didn’t sleep the night before flying
into New York.

I spent the night
spinning a roomful of silk.
So when I emptied the room of myself,
The room would not be empty.

I stayed awake
to see my sister awake.
Delivering her into the dawn,
her face disappeared
like a star.

I picked through the debris
of the years, deciding what to take
and leave behind. Finally,
I decided to take
nothing more than
a pair of wings.

I am leaving now, I nudged my grandfather, still asleep.
What? he said, turning
his better ear towards my lips.
Nothing, I said, Get back to sleep.
I left. He continued sleeping,
as though woken by nothing more
than the faintest impression
of some night thing in passage.