Meditation on Writer’s Block

In unnamed corners
of these blank spaces,
obscure and timid words
avoid my lantern’s beam.

They fear light like the undead.
They curse the writer’s day of harvest
and the prospect of slavery on paper.
Freedom ends when you are written.

My pen moves fast, my goal is simple:
Try to write as many as possible before they stampede.
I write fast, blotch the ink across the page
with the bottom my hand, like all lefties do,

and manage to capture three slow ones.
Legal size, readable, good color.
The school is fast, and most words scurry back
into the undefined darkness where they came from.

My three words lay there,
flat among the blue stains,
as I read them: “roses are red”.
I crumble the paper and let them go.

DQ 11/2/06