Another day. Nothing written.
I stare at a stark white sheet of A4 paper.
The stark white sheet of A4 paper stares back at me.
My hand, disembodied, holds an immobile pencil, hovering over the paper.
Looking like an Escher drawing.

I continue to stare. To stare, To star. If only.

“Avoid the pitfalls”, my blessed English Teacher, Mrs Pettyfer
at Pittsville High School admonished. “First -
avoid the cliches”.

Whereto then Horatio? Forward to Archetypes?

Bring me your Jung – your collective memories.

I know from reading the crits, Archetypes will bring out the trolls,
In MSM, and Social Media.

I can hear the clatter of keyboards spelling out, “Pompous” and “Pretentious..

I am no Sophocles or Dante. I am but a simple soul.

What should one as I write?

I turned to the modern day Delphic Oracle – You Tube.
A YouTube Muse advixed, “Write what you know.”

Slipping through a Worm-Hole into Alice Land,
I heard the diminutive Mad Hatter on my left shoulder cackle,
“How do you know what you know until you’ve written it?”

The little Leprechaun on my right shoulder chortled, “What now brown cow?”

Brushing my demonic friends aside, I headed
For the kitchen, to feed the cat, and continue my
Sisyphean task, unstack the dishwasher,
Stack it again. Unstack the dishwasher, repeat.

How did Frank O’Hara manage to
Dash off a masterpiece in a few minutes
After lunch? (And leave it mouldering in
A drawer in his desk at MOMA waiting for
An inquisitive editor to wrench it from him.)

I googled to find out what “real” writers had to say about writing.

Among the results, I found Charles Bukowski (who started writing poetry
At age 35.)

Bukowski had a poem, “so you want to be a writer?”

Bukowski was an alcoholic and wrote about depraved environments.

Yeah – I might give that a try. Alcoholism, I mean.

Nah = costs too much.

Bukowski also threw a radio through a window (a closed one).

Yeah – might give that a try.

Here’s to buying an old bakelite one.

Couldn’t hurt – except for the radio and the window.

Well, maybe I’ll take Bukowski’s advice, and try something else.

Maybe, tuba playing, or smashing leprechauns, or dismantling Mad Hatters, or Uber driving.

Anything – if it sounds like fun.