last night i was filled with poetry -
filled to the brim, and now i'm not.
last night i was filled with pain and life
and with the joy of knowing things,
and now i am ordinary.
last night i wrote,
"he taught me how to bruise
before i bleed,"
on a slip of paper.
i knew what to do with the words then but
now i don't.
i have no poem to slip them into and
no storyline to follow them and
i can't even turn them into a painting.
they sit and they stay
and they stare at me and remind me
that i am not a writer, because i don't write when i most need to.

I use to write poetry
and trying to imagine love.
Untill I found you
and I didn't have to imagine.
Then I lost you
and now I have no words.

I declare the state of poemless
Most magic fled from me
I will keep myself on this plain bread
But I can't stop thinking of the garden that was there

State of poemless, seeking pleasures
but the pleasures are gone
There is a hole
in my guts
I've been here before
but that's ****, it doesn't matter anymore

I stumble around in my head
I ****** up something I cannot really name
crashing
making noises that cloud my Sun
I was ****** up before, sure
but I had outlets, I had doors,
I was not as lost
I focused on the wrong, after finding a door
I obliterated it - like I did back then

Only the blows from God move my mouth
All I need is the clarity, where I left it at?
Reality hurts like a sore wound
Reality is the solution, but she hides

Because order is a *****
because neatness is a punishment
This mental jail won't **** me
but this time I won't fight like
I always did
It's not a matter of lose or win,
it's a matter of...discovering
of using words in a way
that they are not words anymore
of waiting for the storm
to finish, for the rain to wash
Still I feel empty, I feel not great
How could I in a state
of beautyless?
I am still a part of the sky
but my light is going dim
it hurts, it hurts, it hurts

As pained as we may be physically there is no greater hurt than a poet living in a poemless age

I don't know what to write tonight,
for within me there's barely any fight.
The Pain within me just doesn't sit right,
Nor does it know when its time to take flight.
In someway couldn't you at least get ahold of me, just to explain why it is this way ya see.

The well of poetry is dry
And the oasis
Who was once blooming around
Dead

Where is the rain?
At least the soft wind
The brings hopes of verses

Where is the night
That at least
Cools the burning sands
Of thoughts

Lost in the desert...
Of poemless dreams

I'm bereft of Ideas at the moment

my mind has gone all a Blank, Dead,

I have a few Bob in my pocket

and a roof over my head.


the T.V. lies mute in the corner

The Wall Clock is still loudly, TICK TOCKING

The wireless is mocking, glaring , saying nothing

and the Cats gone out to the parlour,  trotting.


Three men in a Boat, Jerome K Jerome, wrote

IF, Rudyard Kipling, had  just one inkling

Of the Vacuous mental Black Cauldron,

I now find I sit in,


Would He shout, ''What the Dickens ''

This poor man is not sicking or Homeless

His mind has gone Blank,

Sad'ly he is  Poemless.

            BY Holly Barrett