The Writers Bewilderment

Evict your spotless tinctures from
My empty, calloused, head,
For all my life I’ve dwelt among
The living and the dead.

All my life has not exceeded
My superfluous verse;
Half my rhymes have superseded
Their ingenuous curse.

A Chilion encased my mind
With chains that held astute,
My inner eye was left for blind
Auspicious voice a-mute;

And beetles crawling on the ground,
Lost in their symphonies;
Were boon companions that I found
To share my infamies.

I crept with them, I learned that chains
Were fastened to the ground
And couldn’t keep my thoughts, in planes,
From wandering around.

And so I soared from seas of night
And floated on the moon,
I met a girl of grand delight
And made her swan to swoon.

I thought of oceans, and of mars,
And drank a sea of ships;
I thought of thoughts that broke my bars
Like round potato chips.

Then, broken free, and hand in hand
We danced unto the end;
And made our home as well on sand
As every river-bend.

We slept in sheets of saffron silk
And ate the golden sun.
To every foot of ink we spilt
One thousand more we’d run.

Yes there, in white, did we alone
Lay down our heads to die;
Our liver, lungs, and grizzled bones
Were said at once to scry.

And in our bile we emerged—
The prophets of our doom—
To lift our pens and ink a splurge
Of writings in the room.

For only then, when one is dead
Does one speak of what needs be said.