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A Poet's Journal

Emily Bronte’s Journal

“You have to approach writing like sex: It’s supposed to be enjoyable, not stressful. If you’re trying too hard, everything will turn out awful and your partner ( the reader) won’t be satisfied.”

 Mark Zacchio

 How daily  prompts annoy!

Poetry, should appear magically:

Like  twilight’s fragmented memory,

Or, catnaps  in October sun’s luminosity.

Ah! ‘Tis a writer’s block, I have no clarity.

***

The pen poised on paper

Leaves no words,

Only an irreparable stain.

The blank sheet ruefully

Smiles, nudging me to write.

***

But, I’m alarmed at the vastness

of space to be filled.

Words spill out.

Is it the muse,

or my mind at play?

***

Ink stains; and gashes glare,

Wounding words already penned.

Unborn words freeze.

***

The blankness that

I have slowly filled,

Mirrors chaos.

***

Thoughts hover and swoop.

My mind continues to churn.

Creativity has no Midas Touch.

***

Oh Hell!

Where’s the magical nugget,

The poetic particle?

***

Is it in the gamut of

Exhausted emotions,

Evoked by lurking suspicion

And petty jealousies?

***

Is it in verbal foliage?

Metaphors awkwardly strung together,

Like the shades of feuille morte leaves

Curled crisp in October?

***

Is it in the fleeting thought,

Elusive as chimerical light,

Passing through autumnal trees:

Or, Fall’s fast decaying leaves?

***

Is it in the nostalgic

Amber- rustic fragrances spilling out

Of crystal jars and phials-

the mystique of feminine perfumeries?

***

My thoughts curl up

Lazily, Do  most poets

Undergo this degree of torpidity?

I swoon losing out to

Hades’ Oblivion  and drugg’d syncope.

***

I scan the dreaded page

Suddenly, I’m beyond all physicalities.

Space and time 

Converge, in euphoria,

And poetic ecstasy!

*********

Mumtaz N K

03-10-2020

P.S. 

This poem describes the poetic process, the wavering monkey mind and creativity. It is a journal, hence it is likely to be scratched and cut many times until  the poet arrives at the end product in elation.

feuille morte:  autmunal shades, crimson, carmine,  russet, amber, gamboge aurburn etc.

Syncope: faintness can be induced by drugs
PC: Houghton Library, The Harvard Keats Collection.

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