My blank eyes stare
In bold frustration
At the white sheet
Sitting, calmly mocking me
On the plain brown table

The pen quivers in hand
My mussels shake with shame
But try as I might
My ideas are insanely sane

No bursting fits of passion
Or inspiring metaphors
Only a page covered in splatters
From my ink of internal wars

A block of metal in my mind
A chain of iron on my hand
Glossy mirrors on my eyes
Spiking needles in my thighs

Calling for me to get up
To leave this terrible attempt
But when a poets mind is blank
Like mine
About blankness will they find a rhyme

And, once this over,
Mankind's sprawling about the Earth
Flying from one end to the other
Making love
Waging war
Some feeding the hungry
Others ignoring the poor,
Who will look back at us
And say anything ever happened here?

You think you're a lost cause
but you're just stuck in the middle.
Life's been hard since you were little.
I don't know every thing,
but I know it's getting warm outside
and you're going to be fine.

You think you're a cancer
but just wait and see
that you'll heal yourself,
like you helped heal me.
This may sound cliché,
but it's getting warm outside  
and you're going to be fine.

lightning never
sees its fire burning
the trees

absent and forlorn
as love can be.

I can feel your
thunder on the
mountainside.

we will tame
the ashes, fan the flames,
and the pray the sky
returns to calm
forgetful sleep.

© Ben Ditmars 2014