Pest Control

It begins
slowly,
a mythological creature
edging its way
into a few unshepherded lines.

With naught but the best of intentions
you turn your head as it leaves nibble marks
in your imagery,

then chuckle as one or two
playful depressions
needle the heels
of your flock.

But soon the abandoned
halves of couplets
slink mewling to your door,
and you imagine you're doing the world a service
by finding them mates                                  (willing or otherwise)

and out of nowhere
you find siphunculatan syllables
clustered under the iambs
of what you swore was pentameter but a second ago,
drying the veins of its rhythm

and the dreaded cliches
begin to take root
between your similes,
and soon the similes are killed off
and the metaphors simply won't grow at all
and you're nervous even to descend
the stairs into your lyricism
for fear of repetitions
and the neighbor kids
start whispering tall tales
about the lurking self-pity
that bumps in your attic.

And at last
one fine morning, you find yourself
running from a hooded figure
(probably emerging from some flames)
with eyes like the time separator on your alarm clock
at six-thirty in the morning,
one fist clenched about a sword
with a Latin name, sharp enough
to split an infinitive,
intoning guttural rhymes
thick with adjectives and pathos--

that,
tender poet,
is darkness.