Aphelion Issue 300, Volume 28
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The Writer's Block

by By James Parnell


Know ye well, the writers' plague
Of wrenching words concise or vague.
Place them wittily upon the page
Without a break, nor with a wage.

Burning chunks of non-sequitur rain
Malformed and battered, sad syntax.
Deformed and scattered, tattered hacks:
The word processor's bane.

Cyclopean eye of computer screen
Staring back with smug disdain,
A chorus sings, "The page remains!"
No matter how you rack your brains.

So regurgitate old plagiarized prose
That you pray to God that no one knows
Snide chorus sings, "The page retains!"
Your trail of wrecked and wordly pain.

The writer's block, those stunted lines
The writer's block, those stilted rhymes
The writer's block, the wordsmith's dread
"Out, damned rot! Out of my head!"


© 1999 James Parnell

Find more by Jim Parnell in the Author Index.

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