clearly the mind knows its own mind, or its unconscious mind.
Truer words were never spoken, Charlotte!
I've been trying to answer this question, but I don't know the answer. At present I am not writing poetry at all. I used to write a poem a day, more or less, and worry it like a dog worries a bone until I was statisfied with it. That usually took a day, off and on, and a gazillion drafts. Or sometimes you get one for free, ready made like Athena from Zeus' head.
Or sometimes I rediscover one that never worked, perhaps years later, and know at once what I can do with it. There might be only one good line for salvaging, and that ain't so bad. There are sites that want "one good line". Ink | Blink, for example.
Sometimes I find it was ready and raring to go and I didn't know it so I send it off to a better place and it never returns except to show off its new home.
Sometimes the best thing to do is pretend it's a doughnut or a code cipher and you are at war, the enemy is at the gates--dunk it in a cup of hot chocolate, chew and swallow. No incriminating evidence, you know.
Not to be confused with the memorable advice once given me by John Riley, "You can dip a turd in chocolate, but it isn't advisable to eat it."
Keep those latter two bits of advice compartmentalized.
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