The Poem Writes Itself

by Ayşe Tekşen

The poem writes itself,
but I’m the one who creates 

the dangling spots of heartaches, 
the coughing pits 
of billions of bleak units,
the time 
of timeless injuries, 
the scare 
of scarecrows,
the adversity 
of four-dimensional falls.

The poem writes itself,
but I’m the one who tickles
the world’s unworldliness, 
our chaos, 
the structure 
of smiling stars, 
the surprise 
of the sun’s prize, 
the rivers
of unaccustomed youth, 
the skin 
of unpeeled bones.

I am to kill the Phoenix’s nest 
to make it fly 
when unborn, 
when dormant
and still ignorant
of the voiceless voice of the dazed, 
the sleep of stones,
the water on ocean deep deserts. 

I may sign every poem, 
but the poem writes itself.

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Ayşe Tekşen lives in Ankara, Turkey. Her work has been included in Gravel, After the Pause, The Write Launch, Uut Poetry, The Fiction Pool, What Rough Beast, Scarlet Leaf Review, Seshat, Neologism Poetry Journal, Anapest, Red Weather, Ohio Edit, SWWIM Every Day, The Paragon Journal, Arcturus, Constellations, The Same, The Mystic Blue Review, Jaffat El Aqlam, Brickplight, Willow, Fearsome Critters, Susan, The Broke Bohemian, The Remembered Arts Journal, Terror House Magazine, Shoe Music Press, Havik: Las Positas College Anthology, Deep Overstock, Lavender Review, Voice of Eve, The Courtship of Winds, Mojave Heart Review, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Tipton Poetry Journal, Rigorous, Rabid Oak, The Thieving Magpie, Headway Quarterly, The Roadrunner Review, Helen Literary Magazine, The Ilanot Review, Pensive, and The Hamilton Stone Review. Her work has also appeared or is forthcoming in Room and The Manifest-Station.

About this poem, Tekşen writes, “Human truth. What is its definition? It is ever decipherable? If it is, then, through what will it be deciphered? Through pain? Some suffering? And if so, where are they from? Where does violence reside? Against the time’s current, the man always swims in his own paradox toward that unholy place where the poems write themselves, where the creator juxtaposes with his own creation, and where the poet is only one of the many faces the creator wears.”