Genius At Work

My desk is littered with lists
do this by then, that before when,
remember this, don’t forget that
and when I need to find the thing
that is chomping at my to-do clock,
that thing I know I need to do now,
the thing I can’t remember what
maybe even why, I can’t find it.

Scraps of paper stack up in wild piles
a Jenga game gone wrong from the start;
when I sweep them up to neaten them,
towers topple, pages take wing, fly
to freedom under/behind the bookcase
or line the floor like errant throw rugs
with verse fragments written on them,
poetic lines to find a place for, grocery
lists from last month.

I get distracted by too-small scripted words
that mimic extinct birds flying overhead,
scrawled words with exclamation marks,
clouds and stars signaling their hierarchy
on the wow-write-this-now-scale,
or hieroglyphics of pyramid proportions
that keep me inspired for hours, writing
about what I think I was jotting down
but most times just writing and writing.

I’m a list maker, no reforming me.
I never toss them, they span decades
of do this and I didn’t, go there before
and I missed it, don’t forget and I did.
My friend tells me to use a calendar
to jot down important dates and info but
I have yet to find a calendar with boxes
big enough to hold the reams of written-
on stacks that keep my desk useful.

~ J R Turek
June 27, 2020
Hour 6