~The poet uses the butterfly net of language to catch fleeting images in mid-flight~

Monday, March 21, 2011


Dilemma


Blank page staring,
Staring at me.
Yet I am the author
Striving to be.
Words cross my mind
But travel not through the heart.
Without a beginning,
How can I start?

Blank page staring,
Staring at me.
I’m wracking my brains
But it’s as empty as can be.
I peel off the lines
To find the hidden proof
Yet, there the page remains
Naked, empty, aloof.

Blank page staring,
Staring at me.
Is this how Hamlet felt
Reduced to a soliloquy?
Round and round the head
But never on the page.
This writer’s curse
Has locked me in a cage.

Blank page staring,
Staring at me.
Why is it that I capture
Not one profundity?
Has my mind gone empty
To match the page?
Or could this dearth
Bring forth a Sage?

Blank page staring,
Staring at me.
Maybe it would be better
Just to let you be free.
Not to encumber your space
To satisfy my pride
And bend to whispered words
On which all pretensions glide.

Blank page staring,
Staring at me.
Perhaps I’m guilty
Of some iniquity.
Did I pump out words
Like a whore throws looks?
Maybe what the world needs
Is more trees and less books.


15 comments:

  1. Blank page staring,
    Staring at me.
    I’m wracking my brains
    But it’s as empty as can be.
    I peel off the lines...

    Big smiles, love your lines, outstanding work.

    A++

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  2. Tiger, as always, your words are truly inspirational!!!!!!

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  3. i always write when i am inspired so i guess i am lucky never to have to face this dateline thing most free lance writers do haha! here's my potluck http://fiveloaf.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/paper-scribbles/

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  4. Tiger, the blank page as muse, brilliant and entertaining!

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  5. at least it seems you have found good company...to be on empty...

    i am rather fond of poems about writers block, if for nothing else it means you wrote any way..

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  6. Oh, I know the feeling... I think you have expressed it finely. Thoroughly enjoyed reading this one :)

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  7. Very good! Immensely enjoyable read...:)

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  8. The blank page is our biggest adversary as writers, but a great opportunity! Good job.

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  9. love that ending! :) you sure can be thought-provoking when those words finally settle down into the page.

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  10. I think every writer and student has faced a blanket page. i think you ahve captured it totally.
    Im here visitng from One Shot Wednesday.
    Blessings

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  11. I liked it very much ... so beautifully captured... I enjoyed it so much...



    ॐ नमः शिवाय
    Om Namah Shivaya
    http://shadowdancingwithmind.blogspot.com/2011/03/whispers-seed-and-senseless-living.html
    At Twitter @VerseEveryDay

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  12. "Maybe what the world needs
    Is more trees and less books."

    Funny how when life gets the best of us we think the worse. I found it interesting you ended your poem with the above.

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  13. love the refrain in your poem tiger - and your last line made me smile..
    i had to think of a bukowski poem when reading this - it's about a writer who was good and gets more and more weak and when bukowski was asked what he thinks is the reason, he said: maybe he didn't wait until the words piled up.. i think of this quite often

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  14. great, I loved the way you turned the blank page into a full one. If only the block I encounter as a photographer were so simple to overcome... maybe?

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