by Priscilla Barton Bukowski wrote a poem called "The Mockingbird." It's been described as "the animal at war with its own kind or with another species, or with the forces of nature." He always insisted that his lines be true to his own speech. A critic once described his work as "the spoken word nailed to paper." In this instance, Bukowski "found" the poem in his own driveway. The Mockingbird the mockingbird had been following the cat all summer mocking mocking mocking teasing and cocksure; the cat crawled under rockers on porches tail flashing and said something angry to the mockingbird which I didn't understand. yesterday the cat walked calmly up the driveway with the mockingbird alive in its mouth, wings fanned, beautiful wings fanned and flopping, feathers parted like a woman's legs and the bird was no longer mocking, it was asking, it was praying but the cat striding down through centuries would not listen. I saw it crawl under a yellow car with the bird to bargain it to another place. summer was over. I believe most artists are blessed/cursed with a second and third sight. Their senses are often on overload. Many turn to drugs and alcohol to dull that awareness. A few have been taken over and fried by their own highly charged circuitry. Others are able to harness that energy, and flick the "off" switch for their own survival. Creativity has its price. It can bring the greatest joy to the artist, but the cost can sometimes be too steep for those not strong enough to keep the process in perspective. My process is to allow the poetry to "come for me." Inspiration will often trigger this process. I find that inspiration in music, and the words of other poets. Sometimes, it will come for me while I'm standing in line at the bank, which is why I always carry a pad and pencil. There will be times when life hands you a poem. I work with the mentally ill, and one of my patients believed there was a river running through her body. This poem "came for me" while observing her illness: When A Woman Is A River When questioned, she said there was a river that ran through her - a blue river beneath pale skin, branching off into fingers that pointed to shorelines. She told them, those who kept asking, that the stones at this river's bottom had been washed smooth, and weighed heavy inside her. She raised her hands above her head, and asked them, those who offered help, if they could save her from the drowning. She showed them, those who needed proof, the nature of whitewater eyes, and held herself still at the elbows. And when they filled her veins, those who knew currents, with more rivers, she drifted to the bottom and touched the smoothness of stones. *** Peace to all.