August 20: inspiration... (10 minutes)

...strikes,

after feeling like nothing would come,
after nothing came,
it came,
like a rusty old plane
with sticky propellers,
nothing propelling me but sheer determination,
beer germination,
and too many smokes of two different kinds,
I push forward and find
after several attempts, with a sputtering pause
and no other cause
but to get something down,
stop my clowning around
and pushing along the hands of the clock--
time taking too long--
it came like a song,
first a line and then more,
three and four, like before,
but this time I kept on
with ink trailing along
behind pen held in hand, turn the page and keep going,
now the story is flowing.

I pause for a moment, a short hesitation
then comes yet another wave of inspiration,
my shoulder is bunched up and pain will set in
but I cannot turn in,
for from within it comes out;
once again I'm a spout
from whence characters live.
The research that I did
makes my mind like a sieve,
thoughts burning on air
and on my arm hair
like the ash from a cigarette, like something forgotten
just now rebegotten.

This inspiring moment is crashing again on the shore
on the floor
with the discarded pages, the copy pulled out
and the new going in.

Thank you trees for the paper and the light from within,
I had stopped for a while but henceforth I begin.