Poem that doesn't end to soon

 I'd like to learn the trick of going on, 

Not ending the poem too soon in a fit of impatience

or fear, like I always do. But what am I afraid of 

anyway?  Making a mistake? Too late for that.

"Outwearing my welcome"? But we're all on borrowed time. 

Alice Notley say fearlessness is the key to the poetic voice.

That and a sense of the live presence of the person on the page,

a rare thing almost nobody gets or even thinks about. 

What are the other poets trying for, even? 

Trying to be deemed worthy of being read in the first place, 

getting published with that imprimatur and thus worthy 

of being published that exact place? And maybe even read? 

Achieving a legitimacy that already have (or don't have)... 

The trick of going on, anyway, is to get to the middle. 

Here we have been going on for a bit and feeling comfortable

if not fearless. The anxiety of beginning has dissipated, and

we are still far off from the necessity of concluding, or even

thinking about preparing for the ending. Here one is comfortably in the 

beginning of the middle, not even worried about the middle of the middle

or the beginning of the end. Here, themes can be developed, even themes

unrelated to the main subject. The earnest work of being unafraid can begin...