Fragments And Reflections

Writing's Wreck

My mind is empty, a dim-lit cove where

Words drift as dust between the twisted hulks

Of rusting thoughts: grand plans for poems and

Stories now like once-proud ships, marooned on 

Today's jagged rocks, and me, their captain,

Beaten, as tiredness bleeds from eye and ear.

I fear this ruin of the dream, of me,

Forced to shore and shelter by those ruthless

Privateers: Ordinary and Mundane;

I fear that unseen shiv, the knife of years,

Wielded by those ancient yet familiar

Cut-throat thieves: Age and Death and Solitude.

I blame the Sirens' hymns that mesmerised,

Filling me with a swashbuckler's fancy;

I blame the wreckers' lamp that drew me here,

That saw me grounded in familiar straights;

And now, in the bounds of this cold, dry harbour,

No fierce wind to fill these slack, tattered sails,

I sit and watch and hope, my bones weary,

Praying for the flood that might lift me free.