the writer's lament

Felt like writing, but I'm not quite up to the play I'm working on (made it to the end of Act One --hooray!). A very bad habit of mine that isn't so very bad is writing something else in the meantime.

Last night, it was a newspaper article on interspecies dating (if indeed socks are considered a species). Today, I feel like improvising a rhyming poem. 

Isn't all writing improvisation? Why yes, it is. But I'm going to write without editing too much --just to keep loose. I use formal structures when I want to have a clear beginning and end to what I am doing. Also, the structure helps give me direction so I don't wander too far off.

So, here we go: I'll do a villanelle, since I like them. Trying to find two rhymes that have to continue over that many lines is a challenge I enjoy. It's also one of the first poem types I wrote when I started writing again after a decade or two.

Starting at 11:46 AM PST


The Writer's Lament

It cannot be but better said
Than I can say in poorly verse,
With naught but what's here in my head.

Perhaps I'll hide away in bed?
I might feel better --can't feel worse.
It cannot be but better said!

Calliope wants to be fed --
And here I have an empty purse,
with naught but what's here in my head.

What good is it to be well read
When every word sounds coarse and terse?
It cannot be but better said.

I feel the existential dread
Of drifting through the universe
With naught but what's here in my head.

A mind that's filled with molten lead
And echoes of a common curse:
"It cannot be but better said.
There's naught but what's here in my head."



End at 12:05 PM PST


Follow up: In my haste to finish the poem quickly and get it posted so I couldn't chicken out, I forgot to ask: what do you do to keep writing when you need a break from a longer piece of work?