unpublished

so many poets

many more unread words

in notebooks

Word documents

on printer paper

who would read

a loose stack

of papers

hardly cohesive

a spineless unbound pile

unglued pages

some caught under

a weight of polished marble

corners blowing

clicking like playing cards

clothes-pinned to metal bike spokes

then luffing in the window’s breeze

who would tighten phrases

shuffle papers

fold them into a manuscript

a volume of verse

seventy poems perfectly bound

placed on a bookstore shelf

title on the spine

to wait for buyers and

readers uncommon

Barry DeCarli

August 27-28, 2015

On Hammond Pond, Goshen MA

©2015 Barry DeCarli

Draft #2