Staring at a page, blank of all except the word “TITLE”
and that meticulous calligraphy my best writing in weeks,
I try to find words in this perfect square, four walls
lined ceiling to floor with shelves filled with books
of poems, and books about poems, and books about what the really smart people
think about poets and poems.
Time taunts, but the sheet stares back at me, more blank
than that lonely feeling I get anymore, each time I hear
a hymn or a church bell toll; burns hotter than hands reaching in
to sneak out a piece of Sunday roast before supper.
Hands have closed calloused around my pen. Poet eyes
are long too dim to search out that face--
the visage that first shoved words into my soul
until it was so full up that fingers ached from squeezing
them out again--the face of the scrawny little Blackfoot girl, so bent
on tasting mud through every pore, that essence matted into her hair in clumps
as she rolled about in the bank of Otatso Creek,
daring Old Chief Mountain to lean further down to scold her poem,
knowing by his sloping grin he never would.
Page still empty,
the sun resurrects and glares through my library
blinds; settles again like dust on Eliot's The Waste Land,
catalogued there, by some gross mistake, upon the shelf deeded to me
by books with my name on the spine.
In that moment, I realize, the girl is now grown
and has my words tied up loosely in an old red bandanna
dangling out of her back pocket. But at least I know
she is still running--letting them slip out on the wind
and never, ever trading them for deadlines of a publisher.
Author notes
A parallel poem to "Bruised but Bent to Put it in a Poem," by CarolDesjarlais.
http://allpoetry.com/poem/2936104
Photo Credit: http://www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock/153887/chief-mountain-mt-.html
"Old Chief Mountain" by montanaboy
In a list
A contest entry
- Hell - Pen Me A Parallel - Commitment Contest 4 - Invitation Only by CarolDesjarlais.
1050 points, ended July 31, 2008, 5 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 8 of 8
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Lovely, your words carve milestones in all you do...I too thought at first glance this was of writers block, and yet I see someone that got lost in time, that time left behind...and yet one that teaches so many. Guess I learnt a great moral from this, so much for time waits for no-one....how many times have I ruined a good write trying to find title or words that fit just to make a deadline....thanks for making me think deeper!
Guess our works are never totally finished nd can be rreturned to at any time of our choice.... well done!
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i have had my breath stolen away. This makes me weep. I have been so homesick...and here, the face of home is thee before me. I know how it smells, it sounds, it tastes, and have felt the slate cut through the canvas sides of my shoes.... I knwo his moods, his sedate guardianship... and I am lsot here without his skyful of knwoing when I am home.
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some truly wonderful imagery
and a beautiful thought which ebbs through this entire piece-
beautiful
m
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QUITE something here at first I thought it was about writer's block - I know I've been where the first couple stanzas are before-.
But you have a grandiose sense as a writer and more - that I don't, and I love it.
Loved the storytelling, the allegory here.
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This is the kind of poem you can lose your soul inside. I think Carol will adore it
Love, C
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This has a sad connotation to it, a bit of lament, but it is also filled with dream like wantoness. a lovely read. perked feelings in me ten well done I feel. Bravo
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I simply fell into this and loved every minute. What an enjoyable piece...i wish you all the best in the contest. Love, lane
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So many elements of style and context similar to the original, but originality is the touchstone of this wonderful poem...creating its own world of points of view and insights into art and life; excellent work here...PK
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