“Writing is easy. All you need to do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.”
—Gene Fowler*
It’s fun to look at the poet struggling, like at this
moment: he stares at the blank paper,
ready to do his performance, when in all he doesn’t
have any wound anymore to let the blood
flow in. Or at least he doesn’t have any more
on his head. He stops. Looks around. Think
about the horizon, burning outside. How
the orange is slightly burning off the sky
to a violet ; an ocean where every star
glisten like salt. He doesn’t make sense
upon thinking this. So he looks again.
Took out the set of knives. Scatter them around.
Names them his past lovers and beloveds. Thinks
about tombstone. Or last two weeks when he
buried a stubborn photo album out of its
existence. Now
the light in the kitchen distracted him. The white
light at the end of the tunnel, he thinks. Believing
if death comes at his doorstep, is he in white
like the moon is supposed to or is he in robe
of black just so the neighbors won’t notice.
And he looks again. Thinks again. And then
he rested his dancing fingers, he apologizes
to them. How they don’t dance
to the beat of his heart anymore. He looks at
the blank page. How the cursor blinks simultaneously
with the beat of his hearts. He’d sooner question
his memory. There’s a pizza he left in the oven.
He went back to the kitchen, looks at the oven window,
sees how the cheese melt, the meat embedded
at the crust. And how the crust, slowly unfolding
itself to the pizza that it really is like
a blooming flower.
He looks at the blank page, again.
Tells himself, “this will be
my poetics.”