I Only

I only make poems with

things of interest and that

presents a problem: what’s not?

I only make poems by

counting syllables and that

presents a problem: miscount!

Things arrive by the senses,

endlessly.  Syllables pop 

into mind by word, vowel 

by vowel without stopping.

So I and I only can

halt the train by period.

I’ve made ten thousand poems

without periods.  What’s worse, 

any line with “every” 

will be short one syllable,

as I have been counting it

as ev-er-y, not eve-ry.

Adding future periods

may make the poems I make

more interesting, and yet . . .

I’ll not be holding the breath.

As for those pesky eve-ry’s, 

I’d be breathless to change them.