The Email About Writing the Poem

I’ve been occupying myself
trying to write a long-ish poem.
It’s an odd sensation writing a poem.
You’re trying to make something

come out of nothing,
and you have an idea
of what it could be,
of stray lines and thoughts,

and it takes shape as you do it,
and you have to somehow notice
what you’ve done and see how
it tells you what you are engaged in

and what clue it gives on proceeding.
Even then of course you have no
guarantee
of the finished thing being a ‘success’
or that anyone else will like it or get it;

or, in fact, that it qualifies as finished.
There seems to be a need while writing
however to hear these words
in your head, to put them down,

and keep changing them until
you hear them as they should be,
working towards the ending
you know when you see it appear.