A Poet’s Block

Where’s the reason, where is all the rhyme?
There is verse coursing through my brain.
It’s dead of night and, in unearthly time,
words, like old confetti, the churchyard stain.

Sleepless in Bedlam, I have surely got
a problem pouring honey on the page.
I hear a verse from the opera, Turandot;
it’s like a fever, even worse, a plague.

So, I must stir myself and search my mind,
write it down, so clear in semi-conscious state,
but when the blood begins to flow, I’m blind;
so near and yet so far, it’s gone, too late!

Perhaps I should direct my energy
to invent a chip; implant it in my brain;
to safely capture words that come to me;
‘twould probably be nonsense, all the same.

So I shall write it as and when it comes,
however, words will find their way to me.
Whether it’s a whole verse or merely crumbs,
you cannot force this creativity.

© 2010 John Anstie

(Read the author’s commentary on this poem)