How a poem is really written

The poet crouches, late at night.
On the table lies his special secret
-- DIAMOND MACARONI ALPHABETS --
in a gaudy yellow packet.
Thousands of letters (only 33 cents)
will keep him awake for weeks.

Eagerly he rips the cellophane.
Letters spill over the table, onto the floor.
As he shuffles letters with his fingers,
judiciously turns them here and there,
skilfully shapes them into lines,
a poem is slowly formed. But then:

-- HORRORS! --
"Where's the U?
I need a U!
A sideways C
will never do.
And speaking of me
We've lost the I.

-- more horrors --

If neither U
nor I are there
the poem will die.
Alas! Despair!"

Two-fifty grams of noodles
usually last a month
with writing (poems, letters),
losing, even eating some,
but-that fateful night-he vows
to march next day to the supermarket
to fling defective noodles down
demand his money back.

And th_s was the poem not wr_tten.

Dennis List