"In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart."

 

Trödelladen (junk shop) by Ernst Thoms, 1926

My poem about inspiration (or lack thereof) in writing poetry, "Where All the Ladders Start" (from my book Lines of Flight) was inspired by "The Circus Animals' Desertion" by W.B. Yeats.

 

Where All the Ladders Start

 

I visited her shop this afternoon

to rummage through the clutter and the schlock.

As usual, old tins and jars were strewn

pell-mell across the floor. I’m out of stock

in dancing bears, she yammered, but I’ve got

a thousand smithereens up on the shelf.

I’ll take a shiny penny for the lot.

 

I knew I’d have to fetch them for myself;

and yet, the price was right. I filled my bags

with broken glass, with beads and brittle bones;

then for good measure, reams of tattered rags,

a rusty can, a box of sticks and stones:

the rudiments of memory and art –

            the poems howling from my shopping cart.