Like fireflies, they dance
around my head, teasing,
promising resolution.

I can't catch them,
too quick for my heavy hands.

Movement on my fingertips,
but the light dims just as fast.

Frustration closes my eyes.
Defeat sweeps my mind clean.

...

My eyes snap open,
The light blinding,
and finally,
pen can meet paper.

my muse teases me
with the faintest of smiles
then is gone
unrequited love
leaving a sweet taste
of what could
if only be

torturing my mind with ideas
fantasies
when put on paper
turn to epitaphs
where another train of thought
has died

I have to coax
bring out of the shadows
the beauty she has
for me
that I may write enlightened
set free

stash in your pocket
keep it for years
don’t dance with your girlfriend
no need for the beer

catapult matches
he’s not short on the charm
over the top
as he hangs from her arm

look at your friend group
who’s fooling who
shadows will follow
as long as there’s food

measurements carry
the very same weight
alone at the top
no time to wait

around and around
cant carry me home
imagine the world
without your own phone.

J.G.Lutes

A moment, a glimpse that resonates
Unfurling an idea, a rose.
Every choice is a petal
That needs your devotion.
A sentence, movement in time,
Our brave becoming
Something grand soaring high,
above green mountains.
You can't write it without becoming it.
We meet ourselves in a poem,
No matter who wrote it.

I have forgotten the greatest idea
the most powerful words
the most cherished memory.

I curse my brain for allowing me to lose them,
to let the images slowly fade away.

I curse it for taking away
what I loved and treasured
for so long.

And yet
isn’t it the same thing
that gave me those memories
created those words
formed those ideas?

Isn’t the very thing I’m cursing
what I should be treasuring
the most?

To take a thought or some emotion,
and to convert it to the written word.
To have a voice unspoken,
and to know it yet may be heard.

To place before the audience
some learning or to simply share a view.
To tell of things, of love or pain,
and to give a glimpse of you.

To remove an outer layer,
or remove a mental crutch.
To open up your soul,
and expose it to their touch.

To etch into the mind,
of someone never met.
A hope a dream or some idea,
that they will not forget.

Each and every poet,
writes of what they have lived and feel.
And from their own experience and dreams,
they paint for us unseen worlds to real.

Through conveyance by the written word,
that great poets have oft expressed in rhyme.
Casting forward thoughts of love and wisdom,
to become unforgotten and to be heard for all of time.

Ideas swirl in my mind
Forming windstorms
That pick up scattered thoughts and words
and grow into tornadoes
that whirl across my mind.

They distract from life
From what's real
and what matters.

But when I sit down to write
They all flee in terror
And my pen hovers above the page
filled only with scribbled out phrases
and my own insecurities.

Why is it
That inspiration hits
at all the wrong times?

Wandering the woods,
no pen in sight,
and suddenly the greatest idea dawns on me.
Distracts from the nature and beauty around
as I repeat it again and again
in the hopes that it will be etched into my mind.

I rush to the place
where I can write it all down
where it can be remembered forever
But when I arrive
It is gone without a trace.

At night, when all is dark,
when silence is the key to survival,
it slinks into bedrooms
and curls up in tired minds.

Keeps me awake for hours,
only to disappear at the first sign of light
leaving me alone again.

And yet, I'll stare at a paper
For days, years, decades
And ideas evade me.
My mind is blank
as the sheet in front of me.

And nothing comes to mind.