LatinosUSA

Ars Poetica by Smitha Vishwanath

You want to write poetry

still your mind
until-
there’s only the faint sound of your breathing,

hush your nerves –
all that breathless blabbering, your head
finds it hard to keep up

Shhh…

let everything around you go backstage
keep your eyes open or close

Breathe in, count to 4
breathe out -count to 8,
repeat,

feel the foot of your brain press the brakes

listen to the breeze blowing in through the barricades,
feel the strand of hair that kisses your face

your pulse slows into a whisper
as if you’ve been administered a dose  of anaesthesia –

just enough

to keep you conscious of the birds tweeting outside,
the gardener mumbling as he plucks the weeds,
the sound of sprinklers turned on

and words float before your eyes
like bits of paper in the wind

you pick them like frangipani,
with careful haste
before they dissipate like mist;

and arrange them in ways
that leave you besotted;
their beauty draws you back into consciousness
you pick a paper and hurriedly scribble the words
stringing them into lines
And then another
and another
and another
and you have before you a verse.

And then another
and another
You read them, first softly, like a secret
then loudly,

you see the lines  waltz in the air
and if they don’t step over each other
you know you have a poem

that’ll dance
straight into the reader’s heart.

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Author Bio

Smitha Vishwanath is a writer based in Kenya. An ex-banker, she enjoys painting, writing poetry, reading, sharing book reviews, nature and travelling. A Pushcart prize and Best of the Net nominee, Smitha has co-authored a poetry book, ‘Roads- A Journey with Verses’ and a novel, ‘Coming Home’. Both books have been well received by readers.