word games
This one is better heard than read in my opinion:
word games
© 2017 punkie
blank pages are blessings
or sometimes a bitch
depends on your mood
or the flick of a switch
one day it’s a gallop
headlong to the end
seems everything works
and the craft is your friend
words leap onto pages
tap dance on the keys
demand to be written
make you fall to your knees
thoughts and ideas
woefully plead:
“let us out, let us free,
give us shape if you please!”
long queues of them gather
in your wrists, at your throat
circling and threatening
to cause you to choke
they rush like a river
up its banks in the spring
their tide can’t be stemmed
in a strange writerly thing
It’s hard to keep up
you can’t stop the flow
there’s no time to sup
or the bathroom to go
you stay up all night
don’t notice the time
what does it matter
when compared to a rhyme?
then all of a sudden
clear out of the blue
they refuse their release
all escape they eschew
the tap gets turned off
the well it runs dry
pens and papers lie idle
eyes roll up to the sky
the tables are turned
and the writer beseaches
“give me something i beg,
for my characters’ speeches.”
but the keyboard lies silent,
fingers fly there no more
not a phrase, not a para
finds its way to the door
she laments, she cajoles
she tears out her hair
but the dastardly words
won’t come out of their lairs
“Where are you hiding
verbs and nouns I once knew?
“Why have you left me
all alone here to stew?”
she threatens, she curses
she calls them bad names
they don’t give a hoot
to them it’s a game
“we’ll drive her to drink,”
they laugh and they joke
“for daring to think she
can put language in yokes.”
“we’re going on strike,”
they yell from below
“we’re not coming out,
it’s our right to say no!”
then again of a sudden
in a trump-like reversal
they decide to show up
for the next draft rehearsal
like dancers and tumblers
in brilliant routines
they roll onto stages
in page-turning scenes
the writer effusive
gives thanks to them all
while silently thinking,
“how could they? such gall.”
authors are slaves
to words it is true
without them it’s like
we’re stuck in do-do
we hate them, we love them
we rave, and we rant
but without them to write
it’s simple: we can’t!
© 2017 Susan Macaulay . I invite you to share my poetry and posts widely, but please do not reprint, reblog or copy and paste them in their entirety without my permission. Thank you.
Image copyright: szefei / 123RF Stock Photo
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