And I sit here, hearing a muse snicker, <br />Informing me that I’ll never compose <br />A poem worth the time wasted on it. <br />I pace the floorboards and listen <br />To Bob Dylan; he can inspire <br />The most drab of us. I think of him <br />As flee bane growing wild in my garden, <br />Having that special something. I think <br />Of Hart Crane and his reckless love <br />Affairs; I think of John Berryman <br />And his madness; I think of Emily <br />Dickinson and her cognitive <br />Cloister; I think of Ovid, eating olives <br />And bread, exiled - for writing about love <br />And sex – so far from Sulmo, his home. <br />I’ve been at it for over twenty years <br />And still feel uncomfortable calling myself <br />A poet. I remember my father say the word <br />With disdain. He would have been <br />More proud if I’d had been a ditch <br />Digger. At least that would have been <br />Manly. Upon my first published poem, <br />He asked, “Are you going to be rich? <br />No? Then what good is it? ” He wanted <br />Me to be an engineer. Earn a true wage. <br />I sit here looking at the white blank <br />Upon my screen and can’t even <br />Record the brittle feeling of this morning <br />As the temperature drops toward freezing <br />And we’re only a few days from June. I <br />Can’t describe the shock of the morning glories <br />As they reach out of the dirt with their fang like <br />Leaves. I am stuck on words and images like <br />A paper jammed copy machine. I can’t <br />Hear what to say, for my muse has gone away <br />Into her own madness and delusions, leaving <br />Me here with an opportunity I’m bound to miss.<br /><br />Tim Gavin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-coldest-may-since-god-knows-when/
