I used to have a book, books,
that I scribbled in furiously
at work, at traffic lights
in the morning and at night
after I went to bed, I'd get up again
and bled upon a page
I'd be halfway through a shower
and I'd rush through top and toe
just to drip upon the page
so the feelings would not go away

now

I write mine freehand, in the dark
after my world has gone to sleep
I take another drink
and become part of all of me
I used to think carefully
about each syllable,
each carefully constructed line
but there is no time, no time left
for me to care what falls from my brain

I read everyday, every word said
I collect emotions of others wounds
and store them as prizes in my head
I love everyone you do, or, did
and I hate them for how they treated you
or, I did, until you forgave them
or, killed them in memory or,
flogged yourself stupid for their mistakes
I get it, you write what I've lived

I draw on memories that aren't mine
Emotions I've never allowed to cut deep
Promises that were left unspoken
and crossroads where we would never meet

Hence the darkness needed to write
because I'm afraid of the shadows
that seem to hide in the light
In the dark I can pretend to be alone
Just my drink, and my dog
which occasionally likes to sit on me
and I can pretend I mean something
to just anyone, kissing emotional lips
with a passion of memories
I don't seem to own

She slides over
the hot upholstery
of her mother's car,
this schoolgirl of fifteen
who loves humming & swaying
with the radio.
Her entry into womanhood
will be like all the other girls'—
a cigarette and a joke,
as she strides up with the rest
to a brick factory
where she'll sew rag rugs
from textile strips of kelly green,
bright red, aqua.

When she enters,
and the millgate closes,
final as a slap,
there'll be silence.
She'll see fifteen high windows
cemented over to cut out light.
Inside, a constant, deafening noise
and warm air smelling of oil,
the shifts continuing on ...
All day she'll guide cloth along a line
of whirring needles, her arms & shoulders
rocking back & forth
with the machines—
200 porch size rugs behind her
before she can stop
to reach up, like her mother,
and pick the lint
out of her hair.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
the frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the maxome foe he sought-
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.
As in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came.
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack.
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"Has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Calloh! Callay!
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

There was a poet who suffered a lot
From what we all know as writers block
He lifted his pen, dropped it again
And that's as far as he got