What I Would've Shown

...here, if I'd had it at hand. A poem called "writing," by Charles Bukowski, from Slouching Toward Nirvana:

you begin to smile
all up and down
inside
as the words jump
from your fingers
and onto the keys
and it's like a
circus dream:
you're the clown, the lion tamer,
you're the tiger,
you're yourself
as
the words leap
through hoops of fire,
do triple somersaults
from trapeze to
trapeze, then
embrace the
Elephant Man
as
the poems keep coming,
one by one
they slip to
the floor,
it's going hot and good;
the hours rush past
and then
you're finished,
move toward the bedroom,
throw yourself upon the bed
and sleep your righteous sleep
here on earth,
life perfect at last.

poetry is what happens
when nothing else
can.