FLOAT FIRES AND FLAG DRAGONS: Breathing the Magic of Poetry, short stack

This story has been condensed from an earlier version. I’ve shortened it to share with some friends from Tweetspeak Poetry… 

A little over a year ago, a friend’s post about the nurturing quality of poetry sent me searching for my well-worn copy of “Poemcrazy”—the only book I’ve ever carried in my purse.

Several days after my friend’s post, another friend shared her video of tattered fabrics wafting on a Wyoming clothesline. I was mesmerized, and felt the ancient urge to make a poem.

I had given up writing poetry years ago. It wasn’t a popular genre and I wanted to be more widely read; to actually make a living doing what I love. However, to be visible takes strong writing. It takes a good sense of what people want. And what we want, I have become more convinced, is to be lost and then found. We want the battle, the blood, the burns, the scars, the resolution, the intimacies…the magic. For a writer to find that takes going deep.

I can’t plot my way to success. Though good plotting helps, I need magic. I need to be willing to burn on the page. Even when it’s not pretty, or popular, or read–I need poetry. And occasionally I need to be reminded of that.

Float Fires and Flag Dragons

FLOAT FIRES AND FLAG DRAGONS

wind shifts

fires float

and dragons curl

around the hearth

of secret aspirations;

recoiling

side-winding

snaking tattered verses

into

healing shadows;

breathing

Moya Katherine Maxted ©