2 AM

I’d say most of my poems are finished within a week or two of starting them. I usually have several I’m working on at a time. Creativity is like a shark: it’s best if it keeps moving. So if I’m stuck on one poem, I can work on another and keep moving!

Then there are those other poems that take weeks, months, even years before coming together. The poem below is one I started in July when I was in Salt Lake City for work. Why did such a short poem take five months to finish? You got me. It started out as a haiku and went through 13 variations before reaching its current form.

I won’t bore you with the details but the solution finally hit me the other day, and it was so much simpler than I imagined. That is often the case. My favorite poems, songs, and paintings have a simplicity at their core. Beauty is not complicated, even when it’s complex 🤔 (Hey, this is a poetry blog. Riddles are free, LOL).

“2:00 AM” will be in my next book of poems, The Anonymity of Waiting, which I hope to self-publish in 2024.

2:00 AM

I wake at 2:00 AM in a motel, 
alone with the dark inside
the room, and the ghost of a streetlight
hovering near the window.