Begging the muse to smile on me
  I pray into a broken mirror
  That reflects the things
  I never want to have to see.

  Hoping for enlightenment
  I kneel before an altar
  Made of wood pulp and bleach
  Where nothing is substantial.

  Crying for a mentor-guide
  To open doors I cannot reach
  The echo of my wrenching pleas
  Only serves to deafen me.

  Choking with the need to hold,
  If only for a blissful moment,
  The chimera of a rhyming prose
  That warms so many hearts but mine.

  The mirror will not lie for me.
  That altar is for someone else.
  The turmoil merely lashes me
  As I spin around in hapless circles

  Grasping for a tiny touch
  Of wonder hidden in the ink.
  Though it isn’t asking much
  I cannot find the magic link.

  It’s not for me the poet’s pen,
  The vision that can shape a world.
  There is a lacking deep within
  Requires my banner stay unfurled.

  Herky jerky hum drum dumb
  The cadence of a new defeat
  Tells me that the time has come
  To urge my lines into retreat.
                 ljm