Poem
By James Butchers


The poem begins in a rather mundane fashion
The kind that lets you know something is about to happen
That there is going to be
A beginning
A middle
And an end

You look to the second stanza
Casting your eyes across the lines on the page
As you begin to settle into the rhythm of the thing
And you try to get an idea of the mood of the poem
And begin to imagine what might happen later on

As you continue to read
And the poet draws you further in
Tempting you with his clever use of idiom
Imagery
And metaphor
You start to feel as though wheels are in motion
The great locomotive which is the poem slowly gathers steam
It is drawing away from the station with you in it
Anticipating a journey across vast landscapes of verse

You look around the inside of the carriage
The other passengers
Reading
Or sleeping
Or staring mindlessly out the window as the scenery passes them by
You are now at the core of the poem
The median point
The guts
The epicenter where all of the action happens

Suddenly
The poet makes a change of approach
The poem quickens
The driver puts the engine into full gear
And the train leaves its tracks
Taking off into the sky
For a brief moment
Before crashing back to Earth