(After “For the Poets” by Mizz Whozza Whazzit on bluesky)

 
You must be grounded to start a poem.
No hasty trip to the rooftops 
for the sake of an old-timey barbaric yawp!
 
Try a comma here,
and take a deep breath in. 
Place a colon here:
for the most-envied, longest of all sighs out.
 
Now affirm that you are a poet
with a metaphor worthy
of a thousand singing birds 
and one little cricket in holely spats
who keeps chiming in with analogy-laden guidance
as if we’ve all only adopted this craft
because we think we once caught sight
of a blue fairy– wings that shone as we heard
time pass– 
like clockwork in the company of Gepetto.