On Writing

A pen lies gently

in wait, an old dog

at the master’s feet,

restful yet ready

Before you know it

knowing fingers

have looped letters

in muscle memory.

The blinking cursor

on sterile screens

like an eager puppy

keeps taunting,

“Now? Now? Now?

will you write!?”

as back-lit keys

like tired servants

begrudgingly

wait in-line.

A frenzied clicking

announces to the world

beware, keep mum

‘the writer’s at work!”

Typing’s for declaring

writing ensnaring

secrets, like flowers

pressed in books,

like kisses stolen

in garden nooks.

I don’t rely

on the safety of a backspace

I pierce parchment with pen

and like a knife twisting,

all is bled.

You churn out

a-1000-words a day

to appease the Muses

They sniff at your offering

& end up dead.

II

You’re all cloak and dagger

quill and parchment

beauty and ornament.

Locked up poetry

in an ivory tower

like bourgeois cowards

You may be for writing,

but darling I am read.

The curvilinear ghosts

of your handwriting are dead

dried on the scrolls of preciosity

the daffodils, the gilded lily, & other floral monstrosity

I am the guerrilla warrior of poetry

for the working man

Between an email and a calendar invite

I find them.

Someone shares 4 lines with a caption

“this made me think of you”

I restore the balance of

the mundane and the profane in

the universe on the same screen.