Sonnets and Villanelles and Cats on my Desk

Check out my you tube channel where I read my poetry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgXtR-Z6G9s

I'm in a cool group.
To stay on top
of my writing, and to
promote and market
my poetry, I often
publish online.
If Lord Byron could
hear that.

In this place that
I belong,
I have deadlines.
I procrastinate until
the very last day, and then
scribble some s****y
lines and get angry with
myself for putting the
writing off.

I have a couple of
weeks before I need
to write a sonnet or villanelle.
I'm getting anxiety.
It's not producing the
desired effect of
hard work or discipline.
No
Not that.
It is getting me thinking.
That is sometimes productive,
and usually comical.

I'm thinking about
the 15 months I've
been sober.
For many years,
I was miserable.
Drinking and writing.
Writing and drinking.
Holding the bottle of
vodka to my shivering
lips to get the last
spider of liquid.
My clothes smelled of
decay and cowardice, and
everything tasted like
rotten meat.

Now, I have a beautiful
maple desk that my three
cats like to sleep
on while I write
poems about
procrastination and sobriety.
Such fuzzy black miracles.
They twitch as they
dream of fish and catnip,
and just maybe they
dream about writing a
sonnet for me.
We are all
addicted to something.

Author's Note

Check out my you tube channel where I read my poetry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgXtR-Z6G9s

Reviews

[Pete]

can't get much more honest than that. you can't write unless you've lived hard or at least peaked under what's left of yesterday's newspaper on the bench where someone slept while you wait for a bus that never seems to come. best of luck. just be happy twc, the rest is crap. all that matters is what you think and know.

[Thomas W Case]

Thanks, Pete. I appreciate it.

[JessyJacob]

I wish you all the best for your publishing.

[Thomas W Case]

Thank you. Much appreciated.