I’m going to let you in on a little secret:  my technique for creating a poem.

First, I pluck an image from the Dreamtime:

…trying to break the door down, mermaid legs….

Then, I pull the words apart, like petals from the flower and line them up in a column:

trying
to break
the door
down
mermaid
legs

Next, I set the dream aside, and bring the individual words into the now, assigning “top of the head” associations to each one:

trying – difficult, attempting, pulling
to break – severe, destroy, shatter
the door –  entrance, passage, barricade
down – descending, out, blue
mermaid –  mythical, fantasy, ocean bound
legs – support, movement, progress

Then I put the words back together, assembling three new messages:

difficult severe entrance descending mythical support
attempting destroy passage out fantasy movement
pulling shatter barricade blue ocean bound progress

Finally, I sit with this new, raw material, as an artist would with a block of clay and wait for it to call to me.

It may take a little more finagling, but with patience and time, a poem is born.

To see the finished product visit Mermaid Dreams