Poet’s Last Word

Oh, where in the world can your poet run
When the words fall flat, and the rhymes won’t come?
Oh, what hard trials arise to squash younglet poetry,
Like a weeded up, oak-wilt, unlovely and broken tree?
No thesaurus, no dictionary, nor dog-paged Bartlett’s
Can save a poor rhymester when the scansion he forgets.
Arched over his blank page, a pen rusting in his hand,
He remembers clever phrasing that once lofted grand.
But today, too many hours passed, when imagery faded away:
No paragraphs soar to shine, no dark truths for a heart to sway.
Just letters on a keyboard accompany the page gleaming white—
Is it old age, or a brain cancer, or Alzheimer’s that’s blanked his inner sight?
Swirling leaves, the pelting rain; no, just tears to wet another empty page.
Crashing thunder, volcanic explosions; no, just writer’s blocked impotent rage.
Was all this alleged talent just Life’s joke on the unwittingly absurd?
What do you say to the one who cannot find the poet’s last word?

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Another Poet’s Power Trip

7pm Friday evening:
The loner ponders a new blank page;
You’d think he’d have better
At his now advanced presenile age.
But no prospects permit,
And no leads present,
All in all
He remained a proper gent.

7:08pm Friday evening:
Some words managed to flow
Out of prompt sinus gyrae
And across the page, to and fro.
The rhyme lofted well,
The context sufficiently obtuse,
Pondering current lost lovers
[As usual TV fare was of no use].
But no prospects permit,
And no leads present,
All in all
He remained a proper gent.

9:30 Friday evening:
The night’s offering to WordPress Publish—
He’d not edited much,
Twas all a spot of heartache and sly rubbish.

10pm Friday night:
Off went the power strip.
Another headache for morning,
But for now: another poet’s power trip.
But no prospects permit,
And no leads present,
All in all
He remained a proper gent.