Burdened Writers

Sitting with the world around them

Trapped in a bubble of their making

Unsociable recluses. Burdened souls.

Taste for life replaced by endless words,

And worlds away from their own.

 

Busy, busy are the hands that type or write,

A frantic dance of digits, of smudged carbon

And a mass of worn down eraser pencil tips.

Burned out on coffee fumes and cigarette wisps,

Days bleed to together, bound in sparse rest.

 

Glazed eyes and hollow breathing. Gone away,

Lost to the callous devices of literary creation.

Gods in their own minds, but slaves to the whim

Of never-ending places, talking unknown faces

And plotlines longer than furthest horizons.

 

Quiet now, no words spoken only written,

A substitute for open communication.

They speak in the kiss of pencil on paper,

The hiss of scribbled words, the tap-tap

Of soft-touch keys and quote-marks.

 

They know only madness between each other,

A collective, bitter-sweet frustration shared.

Expression, the hardest thing to demonstrate

In sane, adjusted, uncomplicated letters.

The only release, to finish what they began.

 

But light shines through this perpetual gloom.

A goal to reach, in exhausted satisfaction.

The closing lines, the chapter, the final verse.

Instant relief, a liberated, gentle achievement

At the tap, or scribe of that last…full…stop.

Reviews

[Pema Dorje]

at least three of your list are the same for me ... Every step I took on the road of my life lead me to where my feet are now. If you know where your feet are you have the beginning of where you are going and the end of where you've been. I write like this ... I'm grateful for the verities of Poetic experience and Poetry often shows this lyrically without the lucubrations of pedantry or the fundamentalism of bigotry. It sings the ecstasies of realization so lightly in these darkened days, lifting our eyes to the nobler quest in Loving ways ... Language is a constraint which Poetry suffers by bleeding its meaning between the cuts of your wonder! What follows flows to your pen, again and again ... Nevertheless Poetry is play which is the child of creation ... literalists don't remember how to play, they just say it's too clich� ... so play on fellow writer and use the old to create the new, as writers do!

[Kat-Marie Berti]

I agree that us writers are secluded from the world, seeing everything from such different point of views, as if were another species altogether (that's how I've always seen it). When I have an idea in my head, I can sit and write for hours without speaking or doing anything else, like your poem states. I love how you ended it, it just gave me satisfaction to read :) Great work!

[Genie]

Methinks you've been in my office, sir! This is well-writ and so true, for me at least. Every single one of your six theme words applies in and to my experience, sometimes to varying degrees but always there.

Burdened, maybe -- for me sometimes yes, sometimes no -- but there are some wonderful images here nonetheless. I especially like the "Quiet now" stanza. That time and the final ... full ... stop are the most fulfilling times for me as a writer -- that and, after it's "out there" making some of the connections I'd hoped for. That makes it all worth while for me.

Hermitlike tho I be, relationship and connection are behind almost everything I write. Interesting, that, eh?!? In addition to the completed creation, perhaps they're a major component of the liberation. Hmmm ... you've set me thinking here. Thanks -- and great job!

[Chloe..Across the Unive..]

I really like this and yes, your list fits..
I like the line ..' they speak in the kiss of penicl on paper'.. a touch of romance.
A good one Adster.. love it.

Chloe
xoxo