November Poetry Challenge: 13/30: One of those nights

Here's poem #13 of 30. For those of you who just found this, I'm working through a month long challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days. The later it gets in the month, the more challenging this gets.



One of Those Nights

There are nights
when the most luscious images
skulk away, stubbornly lurking
out of sight
no matter how hard you try
to yank them decently
onto the page.
Inspiration sulks in the corner,
and the Muse
snores on the floor
down and out for the count.
Drooling.
It's not pretty.
Those are the evenings
when dilettantes throw up their hands
and throw down their pens
because they Just Aren't Moved
and it Just isn't Happening.
But writers?
Writers roll up shirt sleeves
grasp a pencil firmly in hand,
and dig into the word piles anyway.
They go ahead and shovel,
tossing phrases haphazardly
onto the paper,
letting them jumble and spill
and catch precariously on the lines.
Because bad poetry?
Bad poetry can be edited.
But there is just no save
for an empty page.


Melissa McCollum
11/13/2010