Lines carefully rhymed and metered, discarded - dismissed in favour of babbling fragments, disconnected thoughts, wanton acridity Stanzas that tell not an unvarnished truth, rewritten - an essay to abolish facile aesthetics in favour of sincerity, the nudity of sentiment, the humility of the simple The creature is thrashed, clawed and scratched until the allure of its skin is gone beyond all doubt and remains only the raw flesh glistening in scarlet Mad, incoherent and wild, its voice arises to utter a first crude verse - a threnody of pregnancy To emerge - the flower of agony, is a new creature, one with fingers much better suited for the contours of a heart 25-IX-2013