Passion's Call Poem by Danny Velasquez

Sometimes, before my eyes open,
I lie still somewhere between

awake and sleep with similes
metaphors and alliteration
weaving through
my minds
gray matter
like sea-run salmon
swimming upstream
into clear fertile rivers
to spawn.

Prepared
for occasions like this,
I leave a pen with notebook
lying open on the nightstand
beneath the glow
of my reading lamp.

At other times
inspiration speaks,
quietly, unexpected,
at the diner over breakfast:
coffee, short stack,
eggs over easy.
Like a lover, hiding
among the shadows,
throwing pebbles
at my window.
If ignored, she fades

into darkness,
and all my passion escapes.