METAPOETICS V/VI
by Will de Kypia

👶
One That Survived
.A poem is never finished;
it is only abandoned.
—W. H. Auden
_________after Paul Valéry

Most of my children die of neglect.

Of neglect rather than abuse, for I am
not a cruel parent, I'm an artist. A poet.
 
Although the act of creation is thrilling
the obligations of stewardship follow it.
 
My progeny are precious, but children
require a village to thrive. I live alone.
 
Alone — save for the many poems-to-be
always gestating inside my fecund skull.

I birth the babies into a steno notepad and
nestle them next to their siblings, confident the
verslings will one day become mature poems.

I close the desk drawer
genuinely intending to return
to those nippers, soon.

Very soon.

Later, much later, I will
find the little darlings piled up
in a spiral alternation, dead.

Very dead.

They were past resurrection
even before the ink dried.
 
I immolate the runty remains with
minimal mourning and no self-reproach,
pick up my fertile, fatal pen again,
and create another poem-to-be.

All artists can engender.
Not all of us can nurture.

💀
Ars lenta, vita plena