Missing the Moment

by . .

I sit down to produce a jot of verse—
I stand up, and I pace around the room.
What might have been a banger will get worse
The more I pace. To hesitate spells doom.

For any work which takes a focused mind—
And poetry is surely in that group—
Ideas must flow all at once, I find,
Or else I'll lose myself: caught in a loop

Of thinking, and rethinking, and—oh, fuck!
I've dropped the thread entirely by now.
That's what I get for pacing: a big suck;
The glimmer of a topic, but no "pow!"

One saving grace: there is no Poem Boss.
When I screw up, it's no-one else's loss.