What Do You Do About Dry Periods In Your Writing?

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1. Writing often it is the only Thing Between you and Impossibility. No drink, No woman’s love, No wealth Can Match it. Nothing can save You Except Writing. It keeps the walls From Failing. The hordes from Closing in. It blasts the Darkness. Writing is the Ultimate Psychiatrist, The kindliest God of all the Gods. Writing stalks […]...
2. Baseball and Writing Fanaticism? No. Writing is exciting And baseball is like writing. You can never tell with either How it will go Or what you will do; Generating excitement A fever in the victim Pitcher, catcher, fielder, batter. Victim in what category? Owlman watching from the press box? To whom does it apply? Who is excited? Might […]...
3. Fourth Floor, Dawn, Up All Night Writing Letters Pigeons shake their wings on the copper church roof Out my window across the street, a bird perched on the cross Surveys the city’s blue-grey clouds. Larry Rivers ‘ll come at 10 AM and take my picture. I’m taking Your picture, pigeons. I’m writing you down, Dawn. I’m immortalizing your exhaust, Avenue A bus. O […]...
4. From The Frontier Of Writing The tightness and the nilness round that space When the car stops in the road, the troops inspect Its make and number and, as one bends his face Towards your window, you catch sight of more On a hill beyond, eyeing with intent Down cradled guns that hold you under cover And everything is pure […]...
5. So I Said I Am Ezra So I said I am Ezra And the wind whipped my throat Gaming for the sounds of my voice I listened to the wind Go over my head and up into the night Turning to the sea I said I am Ezra But there were no echoes from the waves The words were swallowed up […]...
6. TO BRENDA WILLIAMS 'WRITING AGAINST THE GRAIN&#039 It was Karl Shapiro who wrote in his ‘Defence of Ignorance’ how many poets Go mad or seem to be so and the majority think we should all be in jail Or mental hospital and you have ended up in both places – fragile as bone china, Your pale skin taut, your fingers clasped tight […]...
7. Picture-Writing In those days said Hiawatha, “Lo! how all things fade and perish! From the memory of the old men Pass away the great traditions, The achievements of the warriors, The adventures of the hunters, All the wisdom of the Medas, All the craft of the Wabenos, All the marvellous dreams and visions Of the Jossakeeds, […]...
8. The Danger Of Writing Defiant Verse And now I have another lad! No longer need you tell How all my nights are slow and sad For loving you too well. His ways are not your wicked ways, He’s not the like of you. He treads his path of reckoned days, A sober man, and true. They’ll never see him in the […]...
9. The Space Coast Florida An Airedale rolling through green frost, Cabbage palms pointing their accusing leaves At whom, petulant waves breaking at my feet. I ran from them. Nights, yellow lights Scoured sand. What was ever found But women in skirts folded around the men They loved that Friday? No one found me. And how could that have […]...
10. The feminine touch she came on a fine cool morning The last of a course i was attending As we crowded the pavement Waiting to be let in – hello she said Put her arms around me – hugged me Gave me a welcoming kiss Long time she said – she looked Familiar but i did not know […]...
11. Permanence Set within a desert lone, Circled by an arid sea, Stands a figure carved in stone, Where a fountain used to be. Two abraded, pleading hands Held below a shapeless mouth, Human-like the fragment stands, Tortured by perpetual drouth. Once the form was drenched with spray, Deluged with the rainbow flushes; Surplus water dashed away […]...
12. A World Without Objects is a Sensible Emptiness The tall camels of the spirit Steer for their deserts, passing the last groves loud With the sawmill shrill of the locust, to the whole honey of the Arid Sun. They are slow, proud, And move with a stilted stride To the land of sheer horizon, hunting Traherne’s Sensible emptiness, there where the brain’s lantern-slide […]...
13. Dunes WHAT do we see here in the sand dunes of the white Moon alone with our thoughts, Bill, Alone with our dreams, Bill, soft as the women tying Scarves around their heads dancing, Alone with a picture and a picture coming one after the Other of all the dead, The dead more than all these […]...
14. Back From Australia Cocooned in Time, at this inhuman height, The packaged food tastes neutrally of clay, We never seem to catch the running day But travel on in everlasting night With all the chic accoutrements of flight: Lotions and essences in neat array And yet another plastic cup and tray. “Thank you so much. Oh no, I’m […]...
15. Sonnets 05: Once More Into My Arid Days Like Dew Once more into my arid days like dew, Like wind from an oasis, or the sound Of cold sweet water bubbling underground, A treacherous messenger, the thought of you Comes to destroy me; once more I renew Firm faith in your abundance, whom I found Long since to be but just one other mound Of […]...
16. Against Writing about Children When I think of the many people Who privately despise children, I can’t say I’m completely shocked, Having been one. I was not Exceptional, uncomfortable as that is To admit, and most children are not Exceptional. The particulars of Cruelty, sizes Large and X-Large, Memory gnawing it like A fat dog, are ordinary: Mean Miss […]...
17. Writing A man who keeps a diary, pays Due toll to many tedious days; But life becomes eventful then His busy hand forgets the pen. Most books, indeed, are records less Of fulness than of emptiness....
18. In Praise Of Writing Letters Blest be the Man! his Memory at least, Who found the Art, thus to unfold his Breast, And taught succeeding Times an easy way Their secret Thoughts by Letters to convey; To baffle Absence, and secure Delight, Which, till that Time, was limited to Sight. The parting Farewel spoke, the last Adieu, The less’ning Distance […]...
19. Egypt, Tobago There is a shattered palm On this fierce shore, Its plumes the rusting helm- Et of a dead warrior. Numb Antony, in the torpor Stretching her inert Sex near him like a sleeping cat, Knows his heart is the real desert. Over the dunes Of her heaving, To his heart’s drumming Fades the mirage of […]...
20. Well I Remember How You Smiled Well I remember how you smiled To see me write your name upon The soft sea-sand. . . “O! what a child! You think you’re writing upon stone!” I have since written what no tide Shall ever wash away, what men Unborn shall read o’er ocean wide And find Ianthe’s name again....
21. Sonnet XLIII: The Unhappy Exile The unhappy exile, whom his fates confine To the bleak coast of some unfriendly isle, Cold, barren, desart, where no harvests smile, But thirst and hunger on the rocks repine; When, from some promontory’s fearful brow, Sun after sun he hopeless sees decline In the broad shipless sea-perhaps may know Such heartless pain, such blank […]...
22. Arabian Nights When the call of the hudud, Echoes through the palm fronds Carrying in their mists, Visions, memories: Caravans of high spirited steads, Crisscrossing the endless seas of sand, Rushing through the oasis, Free, yet under control. Of women washing in the hot springs, Sheltered in the evergreen palms, Weaving baskets, Cooking, sewing, scampering after the […]...
23. Looking-Glass River Smooth it glides upon its travel, Here a wimple, there a gleam O the clean gravel! O the smooth stream! Sailing blossoms, silver fishes, Pave pools as clear as air How a child wishes To live down there! We can see our colored faces Floating on the shaken pool Down in cool places, Dim and […]...
24. Still hear the waves It was a brave day under an endlessly clear sky That extended forever from our valley To the unfathomably distant sea. It was a day to remember amongst days of Classical splendour and wonderment, From an unoccupied beach and the virgin Sand crisp and crumbling under flying feet, To the tumbling vastness of twinkling ocean […]...
25. My Nose Is Growing Old Yup. A long lazy September look In the mirror Say it’s true. I’m 31 And my nose is growing Old. It starts about 1/2 An inch Below the bridge And strolls geriatrically Down For another inch or so: Stopping. Fortunately, the rest Of the nose is comparatively Young. I wonder if girls Will want me […]...
26. The Impercipient (at a Cathedral Service) THAT from this bright believing band An outcast I should be, That faiths by which my comrades stand Seem fantasies to me, And mirage-mists their Shining Land, Is a drear destiny. Why thus my soul should be consigned To infelicity, Why always I must feel as blind To sights my brethren […]...
27. An Early Audience at the Palace of Light. (Harmonizing a poem for Secretary Jia Zhi.) The red-capped Cock-Man has just announced morning; The Keeper of the Robes brings Jade-Cloud Furs; Heaven’s nine doors reveal the palace and its courtyards; And the coats of many countries bow to the Pearl Crown. Sunshine has entered the giants’ carven palms; Incense wreathes the Dragon Robe: The audience adjourns-and the five-coloured edict Sets girdle-beads […]...
28. Dear Colette Dear Colette, I want to write to you About being a woman For that is what you write to me. I want to tell you how your face Enduring after thirty, forty, fifty. . . Hangs above my desk Like my own muse. I want to tell you how your hands Reach out from your […]...
29. The House Of Dust: Part 04: 05: The Bitter Love-Song No, I shall not say why it is that I love you- Why do you ask me, save for vanity? Surely you would not have me, like a mirror, Say ‘yes,-your hair curls darkly back from the temples, Your mouth has a humorous, tremulous, half-shy sweetness, Your eyes are April grey. . . .with jonquils […]...
30. The Boiling Water A serious moment for the water is when it boils And though one usually regards it merely as a convenience To have the boiling water available for bath or table Occasionally there is someone Around who understands The importance of this moment for the water-maybe a saint, Maybe a poet, maybe a crazy man, or […]...
31. Poem (Faithful to your commands, o consciousness) Poem Faithful to your commands, o consciousness, o Beating wings, I studied The roses and the muses of reality, The deceptions and the deceptive elation of the redness of the growing morning, And all the greened and thomed variety of the vines of error, which begin by promising Everything and more than everything, and then […]...
32. Harvest Sunset RED gold of pools, Sunset furrows six o’clock, And the farmer done in the fields And the cows in the barns with bulging udders. Take the cows and the farmer, Take the barns and bulging udders. Leave the red gold of pools And sunset furrows six o’clock. The farmer’s wife is singing. The farmer’s boy […]...
33. Night A pale enchanted moon is sinking low Behind the dunes that fringe the shadowy lea, And there is haunted starlight on the flow Of immemorial sea. I am alone and need no more pretend Laughter or smile to hide a hungry heart; I walk with solitude as with a friend Enfolded and apart. We tread […]...
34. Like Rain it sounded till it curved Like Rain it sounded till it curved And then I new ’twas Wind It walked as wet as any Wave But swept as dry as sand When it had pushed itself away To some remotest Plain A coming as of Hosts was heard It filled the Wells, it pleased the Pools It warbled in the […]...
35. Worldly Place Even in a palace, life may be led well! So spake the imperial sage, purest of men, Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell, Our freedom for a little bread we sell, And drudge under some foolish master’s ken Who rates us if we peer outside our pen Match’d […]...
36. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
37. Said Grenfell to my Spirit Said Grenfell to my spirit, “You’ve been writing very free Of the charms of other places, and you don’t remember me. You have claimed another native place and think it’s Nature’s law, Since you never paid a visit to a town you never saw: So you sing of Mudgee Mountains, willowed stream and grassy flat: […]...
38. Buckingham Palace They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace – Christopher Robin went down with Alice. Alice is marrying one of the guard. “A soldier’s life is terrible hard,” Says Alice. They’re changing guard at Buckingham Palace – Christopher Robin went down with Alice. We saw a guard in a sentry-box. “One of the sergeants looks after their […]...
39. Answer THE WARMTH of life is quenched with bitter frost; Upon the lonely road a child limps by Skirting the frozen pools: our way is lost: Our hearts sink utterly. But from the snow-patched moorland chill and drear, Lifting our eyes beyond the spirëd height, With white-fire lips apart the dawn breathes clear Its soundless hymn […]...
40. These Fought in Any Case These fought in any case, And some believing Pro domo, in any case….. Died some, pro patria, Walked eye-deep in hell Believing in old men’s lies, then unbelieving Came home, home to a lie, Home to many deceits, Home to old lies and new infamy; Usury age-old and age-thick And liars in public places. Daring […]...