BURNING POEMS

“Since Roman times…ash has been recognized as a useful
amendment to the soil…it contains most of the…
essential nutrients...for growth…”—The Master Gardeners (website)

The poet went outside
to get some air. Dense clouds
of ash filled eyes and nose and lungs.
“The poems are on fire,” he said
through tears, “and all the words
are turning into soot. I will go now
and watch them burn.” He turned
his steps to face the conflagration.
Head down, he plowed
against the blowing cloud of ash
till he reached at last the source of smoke,
a great pyre upon which Blake burned bright,
fueled by tongues of flame that lapped at Donne.
The greener poems of Olds and Collins
smoldered red around the edges
while Kerouac and Ginsberg
crackled instantly to flames.
The poet exhaled hard upon the glowing
words and watched as sparks rose in the sky
to fall as ash on fields and flocks and pens. And then
the poet went back home to write again.


by Gretchen Fletcher



One of Gretchen Fletcher's poems, “Two Giant Men in New York,” recently won the Poetry Society of America’s Bright Lights, Big Verse competition, and she was projected on the Jumbotron as she read it in Times Square. She frequently travels to attend poetry readings, awards, and book signings and leads writing workshops for Florida Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Library of Congress, and her chapbook, That Severed Cord was published by Finishing Line Press.