Defusing the muse
Outside my daughter’s school – in the pātaka kai, is a copy of The Horse Whisperer, a bestselling novel from ’95. Peeking at a few pages, feeling tempted, I hear my trusty, dedicated poet’s mantra: You don’t have time to read novels.
But haven’t I enough arrows in the quiver to launch at those bevies of quietly sitting breathers?
How about not being disturbed by the presence of blank paper; no longer that one-man recon’ unit on patrol – a poem whisperer?
Like things-washed-up-by-a storm-on-the-beach.
If you’re not on that foreshore, they're way outta reach.
An OCD thing that comes into its own.
More than just a hobby, you never feel alone.
It fills in the hours, pushes away the dull,
takes away the eyebrows, as you learn to cull.
But a poet’s breath can sometimes stink,
your back can ache like a kitchen sink.
Insight is the worst of it – an eager, nagging rush.
You’ve got to get it down or … hush.
And now, there’s only one thing left for poets:
The death of planet Earth.
Like love & war,
it’ll follow like a curse.
Jeremy Roberts lives in Napier- Ahuriri, with his wife and daughter. He MCs at Napier Live Poets, interviews poets on Radio Hawke’s Bay, and is poetry editor for the VINES journal in Hawke’s Bay. Jeremy has recorded poems with musicians in Aotearoa, Austin, Saigon, and Jakarta, and also makes poem videos. His books include Idiot Dawn (poems 1981-87), Cards on the Table (pub. 2015) and The Dark Cracks of Kemang: The Bajaj Boys In Indonesia (pub. 2022). He was awarded the Earl of Seacliff poetry prize in 2019. https://www.read-nz.org/writer/roberts-jeremy/
