Welcome, she says, welcome
to Poetry Bootcamp
and so Danika commences.

the road to poetry is  adifficult one—
just getting out of the
   big city alone
      what clichés we run into!
          "stuck in traffic for hours"
          "moving at a crawl"
          "running like lemmings"

ah, but "patience is a virtue"
you will be amply rewarded with
   a little space
          fresh air
          and a landscape all to yourself

darkness comes too soon to the long distance
   traveler
baffling and blinding the navigable future
we bleed in hemophilic tones, do we not?
   cry for a little less savagery
   in the morning?
food for thought never tasted so good
   devoured by the senses blunted
   with a blunt object

"he says, always write to someone"
   she says
but doesn't the reader count?
one who reads must be able to absorb
   or deflect

but here goes:

i write to you Charles Barkley
because you are the structure
of my imagined parkside
your dribbling(s) and slam dunks
   once completed me
your arrogance and wit had
   unequal gross gall
your fatitude is its own finesse
your amblings a grace in its own class
you move me to the other side of the
   couch for a better view
and if you read poetry instead of teleprompters
   i would send this to you
let the rest of the court go back
   to their mini [?] serfdoms—
   a king never leaves the court.